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RELIGION or REASON. 



GERRIT SMITH. 



FOR SALE BY AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, No. 121 NASSAU ST. 

1864. 



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DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO, 

IFEBRTJ-A.E.Y 31. 1858. 



Word lias gone ont that I am this day to present a new 
religion: and hence no doubt this unusually large assembly. 
It is indeed a new religion that I am to present ; and yet it is an 
old one. It is old, and yet it is new. It is the same religion 
which was preached and lived by Jesus Christ more than 
eighteen centuries ago. It is the same " faith which was once 
delivered unto the saints." Thus old is this religion : and yet 
so little is it preached and apprehended, that it well deserves to 
be called a new one. 

I see, my neighbors, that you are disappointed. You came 
to this place with your curiosity highly excited to hear about a 
new religion : and it turns out that I am to tell you of but the 
old one. I have put a damper upon your raised expectations 
by announcing for my theme the old religion of Jesus Christ, 
ISTevertheless, is it not a new religion to many of you f The 
commandment that " ye love one another," was in point of fact 
an old one : and yet Jesus said : " A new commandment I give 
unto you, that ye love one another." To those whom He 
addressed it was new. 

Do I stir the indignation of some of you by intimating that 
you are not accustomed to hear the religion of Jesus preached ? 
But when and where do you hear it preached ? '' Every Sun- 
day," say you. "In all the churches," say you. Well, if this 
is so, I confess that I am not so fortunate as you are. For very 
rarely do I hear it. You tell me that the clergymen of this 
neighborhood preach it. These are good men. I love and 



4 THE RELIGION OF EEASON. 

honor tliem : and I doubt not that they are all in the way to 
heaven. But if I understand them, it is not the religion of 
Jesus which they preach. They preach in favor of creeds and 
churches and a clerical order of men. So mistaken are they, as 
still to believe that Jesus came to establish all these : — whereas 
He came to send them all down stream. Blind are they still to 
the fact, that when His religion shall have come to prevail over 
the whole earth, there will not one church creed be left ; no, nor 
one clergyman ; no, nor one church in the present and popular 
sense of the word. 

A religious creed is proper. Every jnan should have one. 
But a church creed is improper. Fifty or a hundred people in 
Peterboro or Cazenovia, however much alike in their views 
and spirit, should no more be required to adopt a common 
religious creed than to shorten or stretch out their bodies to a 
common length. 

There is a sad misconception in regard to a church also. The 
common idea is, that to make a church people must come toge- 
ther and organize, much as in the case of a Mutual Insurance 
Company. This is the way a Sectarian church is made. But 
Jesus no more thought of providing for a sectarian church than 
for a political party. In His eye the Christians of a place are 
the church of the place : and this too whether they know it or 
not, will it or not. They are such by force of their character : 
and votes can neither make nor unmake the fact. 

As to the clerical order. Many clergymen are among the 
best of men. Nevertheless such an order is wholly unauthoriz- 
ed and exceedingly pernicious. Their assumption of an ex- 
clusive right to teach religion makes the teachers conceited, 
dogmatic, arrogant, tyrannical ; and their hearers lazy in mind 
and slavish in spirit. 

The plea for a clerical order is that men learned in religion 
are needed to teach it. This however is a pagan idea, that has 
come down to us. To be^ able to teach a pagan religion — to 
explain its mysteries and superstitions and absurdities — does 
indeed require much study of books and much cabalistic learning. 
Somewhat so is it in the case of the Hebrew religion also. But 
the religion taught by Jesus is not a letter but a life. So simple 
is it that the unlearned can both understand and teach it. 
Even fishermen He pronounced fit to preach His religion. Ay, 



THE EELIGION OF EEASON. 5 

little cliildren can compreliend it. "Out of tlie mouths of 
babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise," says Jesus. " I 
thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth," says He, 
" that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, 
and hast revealed them unto babes." Wise and good men are 
the teachers in many theological seminaries. Emphatically true 
is this in the case of the one in our own county. Nevertheless 
a theological seminary is a mistake. This it is because the cur- 
rent religion is a mistake. The true religion is too simple to 
make the training of a theological seminary necessary for those 
who teach it. "We should allow the wisdom and goodness of 
God to assure us that the religion which He has given to the 
world must correspond in its simplicity with the simplicity of 
the masses. 

Let it not be supposed from what I have said, that I object to 
the pastorship. Every church should have at least one pastor. 
He may or may not however have many of the gifts of a 
preacher. • 

Every true church of Christ is a simple democracy. Such 
practically were the primitive churches. Its ordinary assem- 
blies should be mere conferences in which all persons, male or 
female, are to feel entirely free to speak as the spirit moves them. 
In this wise are they capable, without having any other preachers 
than those of their own body, to edify the church, and to glorify 
God. No Christian should doubt his right to open ^lis lips on 
such occasions. Faith in Christ is the warrant to speak for 
Christ. " I believed," says Paul, " and therefore have I spoken." 
But in addition to this means of grace and growth within them- 
selves, the collective churches should have and should liberally 
support a powerful itinerant ministry : and this I can say 
without being inconsistent with what I have said of the sim- 
plicity of Christ's religion. The Pauls and Barnabases of 
modern times should travel among the churches, as did the Pauls 
and Barnabases of ancient times. The obscurest country church 
should be favored, as often as every month or two, with a dis- 
course from a Finney, a Beecher, a Lucretia Mott, an Angelina 
Weld, a Chapin, a Parker, a Beriah Green, an Alonzo Potter, 
or an Abram Pryne. 

But I proceed to add to my reasons for declaring that the 
clergymen of this neighborhood do not preach the religion of 



6 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

Jesus. They do not preacli it — for they preach that salvation 
turns on believing in the " doctrines." I am not blaming them 
for teaching the divinity of Christ, the atonement, an eternal 
hell, and the plenary inspiration of the Bible. What I blame 
them for, is their teaching that they who do not understand and 
receive these doctrines must perish. I might admit that Jesus 
taught all these doctrines. But where did He teach that if a 
man does not understand and receive them, he shall perish? 
He taught that at the close of this earthly drama men are to be 
judged by their lives. The great decisive question then will 
be — not what were your doctrines, but what were your deeds ? 
How did you acquit yourself in regard to those simple duties, 
opportunities for doing which crowd the whole pathway of 
both high and humble life, even from childhood to the grave ? 
Did you. feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and welcome 
the stranger, and visit the sick and the prisoner ? In perfect 
and beautiful consistency with these interrogatories is the 
Saviour's declaration: " By their fruits ye shall know them;" 
and also the Apostles' : " Pure religion and undefiled before 
God and the Father is to visit the widow and the fatherless in 
their af&iction." 

False tests of character do our clerical neighbors apply in their 
trying of ns by " the doctrines." In reference to good King 
Josiah, Jeremiah says : " He judged the cause of 'the poor and 
needy ; tben it was well with him : was not this to know me ? 
saith the Lord." Says Micah: "What doth the Lord require 
of thee but to do justly, and love mercy, and to walk humbly 
with thy God ?" And how emphatically does Jesus make the 
life the test when He says : " Therefore all things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them." 
It is honesty, that He enjoins in these words. To be honest is 
to be a Christian. The most honest man on earth is the best 
Christian on earth. It is indeed the most comprehensive honesty, 
that is here required. The spirit, which dwelt in Jesus, can 
alone inspire it : and strangers are we to that spirit until we are 
born again. Eadical must be the change in our fallen and 
depraved nature, ere a thorough and gospel honesty can 
characterize us. I say fallen nature. Let me remark that I do 
not entertain the common views of this subject. Owing to 
ancestral violations of moral as well as physical and intellectual 



THE EELIGION" OF REASON. 7 

laws, we inherit a constitution morally as well as physically 
and intellectually impaired. This is all I mean by a fallen 
nature, adding thereto what we may ourselves have done to 
degrade it. 

The clergymen of our neighborhood believe and inculcate 
that little can be done for a man until he has become thoroughly 
•instructed in and entirely converted to that whole form of 
doctrine which they regard as vital. This step taken, and his 
next is to conform his life to the teaching. Now I admit that 
the creed exerts an influence upon the life : — ^but it is not so 
great as that which the life exerts upon the creed. The creed 
should be left to grow out of the life rather than the life out of 
the creed. Let a man set out to deal more justly and lovingly 
with all his fellow men, and he will soon find himself forming a 
creed, which corresponds with his improved course of life. As 
his life becomes increasingly pure and beautiful, so will his creed 
become increasingly sound and comprehensive. In saying that 
the life influences the creed more than the creed the life, I am 
justified by the Saviour's declaration : "If any man will do his 
will he shall know of the doctrine." It is mainly in doing right 
that we get a right creed. 

But it is said that Jesus requires faith, and makes it the con- 
dition of salvation. Faith in what ? In the doctrines on which 
our clergymen harp habitually ? — I ask again — where does He 
teach that the want of such faith is fatal? " However this may 
be," reply our clergymen, " He nevertheless makes faith in 
Himself essential." I admit it. He says: " If ye believe not 
that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." But just here comes 
up the great question — ^what is it to believe in Christ ? Is it to 
beheve in " the doctrines ?" If so, then the millions of good men, 
who had never heard of them, nor even of Christ, and the 
millions too of good men who, having heard of them, had 
nevertheless mistaken conceptions of them, have perished. But 
as sure as G-od is just and merciful, all good men, live and die 
they in whatever ignorance of the person of Christ or of " the 
doctrines," are saved. What then is it to believe in Christ? I 
answer that such belief in its very highest sense is faith in 
justice, sincerity, mercy, love, and the other moral qualities of 
which man, be he in Christendom or heathendom, has instinctive 
knowledge, and for his growth in which, be he in Christendom or 



8 THE RELIGION OF REASON". 

heathendom, he is responsible. These are the quahties, which 
make up that sum of truth which Jesus came into our world to 
live to honor and die to magnify : and of which He declares 
Himself to be the impersonation when He says : '' I am the way, 
the truth and the life." This is the truth of which He spake 
when He said to Pilate : " To this end was I born and for this 
cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
truth." I repeat that to believe in Jesus in the very highest 
sense is to believe in those virtues which were all clustered in 
His perfect character : and moreover it is to believe in them so 
cordially and so constantly as to make them our own, and to 
prove that they are our own by their blossoms and fruits in our 
lives. Our lives and our likeness to Christ are the precise 
measure of tkir faith in Christ. 

I am well aware how contrary to the common view of it is 
this view of faith in Christ. As is generally held, right appre- 
hensions — adoring, melting thoughts — of His person and personal 
character constitute pre-eminently true faith in Christ. I would 
not undervalue such apprehensions and thoughts. He who has 
them not, even though the life and death of Christ are clearly 
before him, can give no satisfactory proof that he appreciates the 
truths which Christ came to teach and illustrate, and no satis- 
factory proof that he welcomes the duties which He came to 
enjoin. !N"evertheless the Saviour does Himself admit that men 
may mistake Him and yet be safe. " Whosoever," says He, 
" speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven 
him : but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall 
not be forgiven him." That is, he shall not be safe who mistakes 
in regard to the spirit and essence — the soul and substance of 
religion. If men may err in regard to Christ and yet be 
forgiven, it nevertheless does not follow that they shall be for- 
given, who live in the denial of those vital truths, which the 
Spirit of God teaches in every heart. 

, I said that our clergymen make the doctrine of the plenary- 
inspiration of the Bible essential to salvation ; and that in so 
doing they preach not the religion of Christ. But are they not 
also in error in respect to the fact of such inspiration ? 

The Bible is really the best book in the world : though the 
present uses of it make it practically the worst. All other books 
put together are, not so much as the Bible is, the occasion of 



/ 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 9 

obstructing the progress of civilization and of filling the world 
with ignorance and superstition. It is adapted as no other book 
is to enrich the mind and expand the soul. But misapprehen- 
ed, misinterpreted, and perverted to the extent it is, no other 
book — nay no number of books — does so much to darken the 
mind and shrivel the soul. 

The clergy make the Bible sitpreme authority. But our 
reason is under God the final judge in all questions. The Bible, 
instead of being used but to enlighten reason, is made to over- 
ride it. ISTevertheless this book, like every other book, is to be 
regarded as the servant of reason, and not reason as the servant 
of it. Eeason must sit in judgment upon the Bible, as well as 
upon all things else : — for it is the voice of God in the soul, and 
nothing must ever be allowed to be exalted above 't. In reply 
to the folly, which makes reason inferior or antagonistic to faith, 
we declare it to be the basis of all true faith and repugnant to 
no true faith. Eeason, in a word, is religion ; and the one duty 
of every man is to bring his passions and appetites and whole 
self into subjection to it. The most reasonable person in 
Peterboro is the best Christian in Peterboro. Most happily 
chosen is the word where Paul calls religion a reasonable 
service. 

But it is said that reason is not competent to pass upon reli- 
gious questions. Jesus however says it is. " Why judge ye 
not even of yourselves what is right?" He came to throw men 
back upon their own consciousness of right and wrong, and to 
hold them to the deductions and confessions of their own reason. 
And does not Paul also teach the su£Q.ciency of reason in the 
first chapter of Eomans, (19, 20, 21 )? 

It is true that the reason of most men is greatly perverted. 
It is true that in innumerable instances it is reduced to little 
better than a compound of passion and prejudice : — or, to speak 
with perhaps more philosophical correctness, such a compound 
is allowed to take the place of reason. Nevertheless reason, 
poor guide though we may make it, is our only legitimate guide. 
It may lead us to ruin. Still we are not at liberty to give it up 
for any other leader : no, not for church, nor pope, nor Bible. 
If we have debased and corrupted our reason, we alone are re- 
sponsible for the wrong, and we alone must bear the loss. What 
was due from us when we had a right reason is equally due 



10 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

from US wlien we liave destroyed or supplanted it. We can not 
cancel our obligations by our crimes. 

Our acknowledgment of the absolute and supreme authority 
of the Bible is claimed on the ground of its inspiration. But 
where is the proof that it is inspired ? Is it in the assertion to 
this end of the churches and clergy ? Is it to be looked for in 
what are called external evidences — which by the way are to 
be searched after in that stream of ignorant and superstitious 
traditions, which has come down to our age ? Oh ! no. The 
proof of the inspiration is to be looked for alone in the pages of 
the Bible. If not found there, it can be found no where. More- 
over, every man must, and upon his own responsibility, judge of 
the proof for himself 

I do myself believe that most of the writers of the Bible were 
inspired. All however that I mean by their inspiration is that 
special flowing of the divine mind into the human mind, of 
which they enjoy the most, who walk the closest with God. 
Thus blessed were prophets and apostles. Subjects of this 
inspiration there are in every age. The sublime pages of Paul 
prove that he was largely inspired. But he is not infallible. 
He does not claim to be. 

I believe in the Bible. That is, I believe in its great unchange- 
able principles and everlasting truths, and in all of it which is 
in harmony with those principles and truths. If there are parts 
of it, which my reason shall ever teach me are not in such har- 
mony, these I will reject. For these, to use a law phrase, are 
void for inconsistency, and are no part of the Bible. 

In what I said of inspiration, I had no reference to the power 
to tell future events. That events were foretold by some of the 
writers of the Bible I can not doubt. 

I said that reason has been overridden by the Bible. The 
vast evil consequences of it no human mind can measure. 
Why, for instance, is it that slavery is able to make so plausible 
and effective a defense of itself ? It is because its defenders 
have been allowed to take it out of the jurisdiction of reason, 
and submit its claims to the Bible. So, too, war and polygamy 
and the drinking of intoxicating liquors and the wrongs suffered 
by woman have done not a little to prolong their existence by 
fleeing from their prompt condemnation in the court of reason 
to try what they can make for themselves out of certain cunning 



THE EELIGION OF REASON. 11 

interpretations of tlie Bible. Alas I that it should ever be left 
to the. decision of a book whether these naked and enormous 
crimes are or are not crimes ! For what book is there that men 
can not read in any and eyeij way to suit their interests ? The 
matchless crime of slavery is instantly condemned by not only 
the enlightened reason of manhood but the untutored instincts 
of childhood. How absurd then to submit its character to the 
decision of pages and philology and exegesis — to the decision, 
which learning and ingenuity are as like to draw to the one side 
as to the other ! 

If men are so low in understanding as to need a Bible to teach 
them the moral character of the crimes I have enumerated, then 
are they too low in understanding to be helped by a Bible. 
Then may Bibles be made as well for donkeys and monkeys as 
for men. 

Who is willing to be a slave ? Ko one. And this proves 
that the reason of man and the whole nature of man universally 
condemn slavery. Hence does it prove that if there is any 
thing in the Bible for slavery, the Bible is so far wrong. 

Again, how speedy and certain the conclusion we are brought 
to by experience, observation, science, study of the laws of life 
and health, that intoxicating liquors are unfit for a beverage ! 
And who but a very wicked or a very stupid man will appeal 
from that conclusion to the Bible or to any thing else ? 

Who too but such a man will ever feel it necessary to go to 
the Bible to put polygamy on trial? Higher authority and 
more certain evidence than the Bible have we on this point as 
well as on the point of rum-drinking. The census tables in all 
ages and all nations dispose of the question of polygamy. They 
prove the equal numbers of the sexes, and confirm the declara- 
tion of Jesus that God made us "male and female" — only one 
woman for one man, fed only one man for one woman. Who- 
ever therefore gets a plurality of wives robs his brother ; and 
whoever gets a plurality of husbands robs her sister ; — -just as 
the people who get two or three farms apiece have made them- 
selves guilty of robbing the landless. By the way, our Grovern- 
ment shrinks from putting down its foot upon polygamy where 
it is made a religious institution. But the province of govern- 
ment is to uphold the great natural rights of its subjects ; — and 
none the less so where the violation of these riojhts is under the 



12 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

cover and in tlie name of religion. The very same obligation 
rests on government to suppress polygamy that rests on it to sup- 
press land-monopoly. The very same obligation to punish the 
robbing men of women as to punish the robbing men of land. 

Again, let the Bible say what it will of war, who in the light 
of reason does not condemn it as madness and murder ? 

And what too, if, as is held by many, Paul does teach that 
woman as compared with man is an inferior order of being ? — 
who that receives such insane teaching is fit to have a wife or 
a daughter ? 

Lest what I have now said might be construed into the ad- 
mission that these crimes are countenanced by the Bible, I take 
this occasion to af&rm that no one of them finds the least shel- 
ter in the principles of that blessed book. Neither the super- 
stitious regard for the Bible and the superstitious assumptions 
in its behalf on the one hand ; nor the assaults, which atheism, 
skepticism, and ungodly rationalism make upon it on the other, 
can ever shake the confidence which he reposes in it, who, in 
the light of a true and therefore reverent reason, has studied 
the claims of this volume to acceptance, honor, love, and obedi- 
ence. 

I arraigned our clergymen for holding that the doctrine of 
an eternal hell must be believed in, in order to salvation. For 
be the doctrine true or false, I can not think that we shall be 
either saved or lost by any views we may entertain of it. I 
now arraign them for their undoubting faith in it. No war- 
rant have they either to preach or to entertain a faith in it 
which is jfree from all doubts. 

I confess — perhaps to my shame and condemnation — ^that I 
do not feel a deep and abiding interest in the next stage of our 
being. Far less concerned am I to know what is the future 
state than to know and do the duties of fhe present. 

I believe in future punishment. It is a reasonable doctrine. 
It is philosophically and necessarily true. Every where our 
character must determine our condition. Every man on dying 
inust go to his own place — to the place for which his character 
fits him. The death of his body can no more affect his charac- 
ter than the breaking of his spectacles or cane. His body, no 
more than his spectacles or cane, is a part of himself That his 
character wiU surely remain eternally unchanged, I deny that 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 13 

any one has tlie right to affirm. Jude teaches that persons can 
fall from heaven. Why then may they not rise from hell ? For 
aught we can certainly know, there may be room in the life to 
come for repentance as well as apostasy. In one sense of " ever- 
lasting punishment," I am an undoubting believer in it : — for I 
can not doubt that the punishment of the sinner will be as ever- 
lasting as his sin. 

Whilst I confess that I have no certain apprehensions of the 
kind or degree or continuance of either future punishment or 
future enjoyment; I nevertheless confidently maintain that 
enough knowledge for me and for all men on this point is that 
in the life to come "it shall be well" with the righteous and 
"ill" with the wicked; and that the "Judge of all the earth 
will do right," as well there as here. Whilst earth is our home, 
let us discharge with alacrity and delight the duties of earth. 
In that way, and in that way only, shall we be fitted for heaven. 
In that way, and in that way only, shall we get to heaven, 

I spoke of the future as a place. I had perhaps better call it 
a state. That there are millions of heavens and millions of 
liells — that they are in short as numerous as are the differences 
in moral character' — ^better answers my conception. 

I blamed the clergy for holding that they must perish who 
subscribe not to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. For be 
the doctrine true or false, there is no right to attribute such 
consequences to its rejection. I also blame them for refusing 
to admit even the smallest doubt of the truth of the doctrine' 
In the mind of every man who allows his reason free play there 
is certainly room for such a doubt. But whether Christ is God 
or man I leave to be discussed by those who have a taste for 
speculative discussions. It suf&ces me to see in Him the in- 
fallible teacher of religious truth, the perfect representative and 
the fullest and most winning expression of His Father. I wel- 
come Him as " God manifest in the flesh." My largest concep- 
tions of wisdom, justice, love are more than realized in Ilim : 
and it is my largest conceptions of these and other attributes of 
Deity, that make up the Deity I love and honor. Surely, if 
Lady Guion may say : " The providences of God are God," I 
may say : The attributes of God are God. 

The mission of Christ to the world was to give all needed ex- 
tension to the acquaintance of man with God. The heavens 



14 THE RELIGION OF REASON". 

above and tlie earth beneath ; the instructive course of provi- 
dence ; and the more instructive teachings of the Spirit were 
insufficient to this end without the manifestation of God in 
Christ. Is it said that His mission was to die for the world? I 
answer that His death was incidental to His faithful exhibition 
of His Father's character. It was because He was like God 
that He was crucified. 

The one thing else for which I blamed our clergymen was 
their making faith in the doctrine of the atonement essential to 
salvation. But are they not also blameworthy for making 
themselves so perfectly and stubbornly certain of the truth of 
the doctrine? 

I am not disposed to controvert the doctrine. In my eye 
there is none of that absurdity in it, which is so freely imputed 
to it. For aught I see, it might have been decreed in the coun- 
sels of heaven, that a being of Christ's superior dignity must die 
for man in order that the claims of the law be satisfied ; in or- 
der that God "might be just, and the jnstifier" of man. 

But although I make no opposition to the doctrine, nor even 
object to being numbered with those who subscribe to it, I 
nevertheless can not feel, as do many, that it is true beyond all 
possible question. Moreover, I can not see why I should love 
and honor Christ any the less, if it shall turn out that the law, 
instead of being satisfied by the righteousness of Christ, is sat- 
isfied by the righteousness, which His spirit has wrought in 
them who love him. That Christ lived and suffered and died 
for men is abundant reason for their giving Him all possible 
love and honor, without their stopping to calculate what they 
have gained by Him. Moreover, it is the privilege of every 
good man to know that the claims of the law against himself 
are satisfied. The fact that he is good — that he loves God and 
man — is the highest possible proof he can have that they are 
satisfied. Paul closes his enumeration of virtues with the de- 
claration : "Against such there is no law." No more can there 
be law against him who is adorned with these virtues. Admit- 
ting the doctrine of the atonement to be certainly and entirely 
true, nevertheless the importance of our understanding and be- 
lieving it is greatly overrated. But the importance of our be- 
lieving that Jesus lived, and suffered, and died for man is in no 
danger of being overrated : — for, thus believing and understand- 



THE RELIGION OF REASOJ^. ' 15 

ing, our hearts are drawn out in love to Him, and to tlie truth 
and to our fellow-men, and to our Father. This is the needed 
effect upon us of the Advent. But on what precise principles 
it is, and whether by any of the supposed expedients or techni- 
calities that our accounts in the books of heaven are balanced, 
is a matter we may safely leave among " the secret things which 
belong unto the Lord our God." 

Again, I can not, because Paul seems to inculcate the doctrine 
of the Atonement, feel entirely certain that it is true. He says 
but little of it except in his letter to the Jews : — and in what 
he says of it to them, he is perhaps more swayed by his and 
their common education than by any revelations or inspirations. 
We must not forget that the Jewish education was full of aton- 
ing sacrifices. From early childhood the Jew was taught to 
believe that the animal killed in sacrifice atoned for the sins of 
an individual or a family. How natural then was it for Paul 
to speak to his countrymen of Jesus," who did indeed die for the 
world as One who had atoned for the sins of the world ! Thus 
natural was it for John to say, as he looked upon Jesus : " Behold 
the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world !" He 
virtually said : '' Behold not the literal lamb which taketh away 
the sin of but an individual or a family : but behold the figu- 
rative lamb — the lamb of God-^which taketh away the sin of 
the world !" If the atonement of Christ is but a mere fancy, 
it is nevertheless not strange that a Jew should entertain it. So 
fully possessed was he of the idea of atonement, that it must 
have been very easy for him to fancy a sufferer for another to 
be an atoning sufferer. 

I do not forget that the animal sacrifices are what is most re- 
lied on to prove the truth of the doctrine of the atonement. 
Those sacrifices do indeed seem to be meet offerings to a cruel, 
bloody pagan God. Moreover, according to Paul (Heb. 10 : 6) 
Jesus testified that His Father had "had no pleasure" in them ; 
and according to Jeremiah (7:22) God Himself declared that He 
"commanded them" not. Still it must be confessed that there 
is a vast amount of evidence in the Bible that God did com- 
mand these sacrifices. If however we must yield to this evi- 
dence, it nevertheless remains to be proved that they are types 
of the sacrifice in which the Lord Jesus offered up Himself. 
May not a man be good and yet doubt the sufficiency of the 



16 THE EELIGION OF REASON. 

/ 

proof to this end ? One thing more under this head. Instead 
of the vulgar view of the atonement, may not Christ be regard- 
ed as in effect an atoning sacrifice because He saves men from 
the penalty of the law by the converting influences, which flow 
out upon them from his life and death ? 

But I will weary you no further with words about " the doc- 
trines." My neighbors, we are all aware that a low place in the 
ecclesiastical world is assigned to Peterboro. For many, many 
years, we have been giving great offense to the clergy and the 
churches. And yet, I must think, that this little village — 
probably the only spot in the State to which the Anti-Slavery 
Society, that was mobbed out of Utica nearly a quarter of a 
century ago, could retreat in safety — is, in respect to a sound 
and rational religion, greatly in advance of almost every other 
place in the land. Onr families with certainly very few exceptions 
dwell together in peace and love ; and in this there is no little 
proof that the religion of Jesus prevails among us. ISTo little 
proof also of this is there in the fact that a great many years 
have passed away since intoxicating drinks were openly sold 
among us : and no little proof too in the fact that the filthy 
vice of snuffing, chewing, and smoking tobacco is held by a 
large share of our people to be disgraceful and sinful. And 
where I ask most emphatically is there a place in all our broad 
land so free as this from the spirit of caste ? Whose table is 
there here to which a black man is not as welcome as a white 
one ? When I heard the other day that our respectable youth 
of white faces and black faces had mingled together freely in a 
public dance, I confess (although I am not the advocate of pub- 
lic as I am of private dances) that I felt proud of my village. 
Where else in our country has the religion of Jesus achieved a 
conquest so beautiful, so decisive, and so much needed ? Igno- 
rant and unsound as we are held to be in regard to " the doc- 
trines," nevertheless are we not quite as far advanced in human- 
ity and practical Christianity as the places where every hair's 
breadth of the most orthodox interpretation of doctrines is con- 
tended for ? 

There is a wide-spread revival of religion in our country. 
Of what religion time alone can surely tell. It is not Christian- 
ity, if it shall allow the rich to stand aloof from the poor, and 
the people of one complexion to refuse to associate with the 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 17 

people of another. It is not Cliristianitj, if it is like the current 
religion. For the terms which this religion keeps with slavery 
and with the murderous prejudice against the colored races 
proves it to be a spurious and Satanic religion. Why, the very 
first lesson in the school of Christ is to know our brother and 
sister, and to see Christ in every man, woman, and child, be 
they rich or poor, white, red, or black. The religion, which 
does not go to bind together all human hearts is not the religion 
of the Saviour. A poor opinion of this revival shall I have, if 
there shall still be as much opposition as ever to negro suffrage ; 
and as great unwillingness as ever to mingle complexions in 
the school and church ; and as great readiness as ever to cast 
votes for pro-slavery men. 

Another delightful evidence to my mind that the spirit of 
Christ has wrought great and blessed changes in Peterboro is 
to be found in the breaking up of our sectarian churhes and in 
the general and growing dislike to sectarianism. God hasten 
the day when, here and elsewhere, there shall no longer be 
Christians, who shall not be deeply ashamed to be called Metho- 
dists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or to pass under any other reli- 
gious party name I 

But were I to go on and speak all the praises of Peterboro, I 
should still be obliged to confess that she is very far from per- 
fect ; that there is still much in her to be reformed ; and that 
she greatly needs the priceless blessing of a revival of true re- 
ligion. Never will our village be what it should be, until love 
shall reign in all our families and all our hearts ; until an altar 
to God shall be erected in all our homes ; and holiness to the 
Lord be inscribed upon all our business and all our amusements. 

My hearers, the great struggle between the religion of author- 
ity and the religion of reason has begun. It did not begin 
with Martin Luther and the early Protestants. They were still 
creed-bound; and their enslavement to the Bible differed not 
essentially from enslavement to the Church. This struggle is 
chiefly the growth of the last half-century ; and in America 
nothing has contributed to it so much as the Temperance and 
Anti-slavery reforms — ^since nothing so much as these has awak- 
ened a sense of human dignity and human rights, and called 
for a common-sense and practical religion. The Protestants are 
wont to disparage the Catholics. Nevertheless the mass of the 
2 



18 THE KELIGION" OF REASON. 

Protestants are with the Catholics in favor of a religion of au- 
thority and against the religion of reason. At this point they 
are essentially alike. For what submission is there to the Cath- 
olic Church which is more degrading or dwarfing than that 
which Protestants are so inexorably required to yield to the 
ecclesiastical interpretations of the Bible ? 

We are living in an age of great progress — great progress in 
the material, mental, and moral world. Every thing is going 
forward and improving except ecclesiastical religion. That re- 
mains stereotyped and unchangeable. But we thank God for 
the abounding evidence that it will ere long give place to an- 
other and better religion. Already are there dawnings of that 
glad day when the superstitions and absurdities, which have so 
long debased and tormented men, shall have passed away for- 
ever; and when Christianity in all her reasonableness and 
righteousness shall overspread the whole earth. 

Alas ! how little has been accomplished by these superstitions 
and absurdities for the glory of Grod and the good of man ! 
War, slavery, land-monopoly, polygamy, drunkenness, the 
wrongs of woman still remain. The religion of reason — that 
religion which says to man^ " Yea, and why even of yourselves 
judge" ye not what is right ?" had long ago done away with these 
evils, and turned this sin-smitten, priest-ridden, superstition- 
bound world into a paradise. 

It is often said that we, who are busy in reducing religion to 
reason, are busy, at least in effect, to overthrow it. But to 
bring religion into identity with reason is not to degrade but to 
exalt it. And again, it is not we who endanger religion, but 
they who reduce it to a superstition. There is indeed danger 
that men will break loose from the Bible. But tliis danger 
springs mainly from the fact that rapidly increasing multitudes 
will no longer consent to bow their necks to a religion of au- 
thority and receive the B4ble because it is the Bible rather than 
because their reason has indorsed it. If this book shall be cast 
aside as a superstition, it will be because its friends are unwilling 
that reason and reason only shall pass upon it and interpret it. 
The truth is that the civilization of Christendom is fast outgrow- 
ing the religion of Christendom: — and this is because reason is 
allowed to infuse itself more and more freely into civilization, 
whilst it is stQl driven away from the precincts of religion. 



THE EELIGIO^ OF REASON. 19 

No wTiere probably are the people more ready than they are in 
Italy to reject the current Christianity. And this because 
no where is the current Christianity more emphatically a bundle 
of superstitions, and because no where is it more industriously 
and superstitiously urged upon the superstition of the people. 
As an additional reason, no where else are the people opening 
their eyes faster to the religious impositions practised upon 
themselves. In a word, Italy has outgrown her religion. Her 
limbs have become too big for her garments. Italian civiliza- 
tion is far in advance of Italian Christianity. 

My hearers, who among you will to-day espouse this religion 
of reason — this manly and common-sense religion of the lips 
and life of Jesus? You had been told by great sticklers for 
doctrines, that a very accommodating religion would be pre- 
sented to you on this occasion — a sort of heaven-made-easy 
religion. I beg you to make trial of the religion, which I have 
now presented to you. Try to bring your entire self under the 
reign of reason ; and then you will know that your task is not 
an , easy one. Then you will know that only he who is born 
again is adequate to it. Then you will know that only he who 
has been imbued with the spirit of Christ, and has chosen 
Christ for his master and Saviour, is capable of siibmitting his 
whole being to the demands of reason. Let me not however 
be misunderstood. Notwithstanding what I have just said, 
this religion which I commend to you is not a hard one. It is 
hard to get. But when once gotten it is easy. When by the 
grace and help of God the yoke of Christ is once upon youi 
neck, you will find it easy, and His burden light. 

We who inculcate this religion of reason must lay our 
account with great opposition, not to say virulent persecution. 
Because we can not " frame to pronounce" the Shibboleth of 
the churches and clergy we are called infidels. It is the bad 
fashion of the age — it has been the bad fashion of every age^ — 
to apply doctrinal tests of character, instead of judging men 
"by their fruits." But never is it reasonable or Christian to go 
back of the life to judge of the character. To do so is to be 
guilty of wicked intolerance. If we regard our neighbor's doc- 
trines as unsound, and are nevertheless constrained to acknow- 
ledge his pure and loving and beautiful and reverent life, then 
instead of condemning him for his unsound doctrines, we are 



20 THE EELIGIOK OF EEASON. 

to do liim double honor for that goodness of his heart, which 
maintains itself in the face of the errors of his understanding : 
and, what is more, we are to thank God for consenting to dwell 
by His spirit in a heart, which is coupled with a wrong head. 

I close with reminding my fellow-laborers, that as we are 
now embarked in the most difficult of all reforms, we are under 
especial need of remembering Him whose name is " Strength." 
Dismayed and overcome we surely shall be, unless our hearts 
go out constantly for His support. When a quarter of a cen- 
tury ago, we had to encounter a very strong anti-temperance 
and pro-slavery public sentiment, we had fainted unless we had 
made the Lord God our help. But then the churches were 
divided and the clergy also. No very small share of them 
were with us. Far different is it now when we have to breast 
the well nigh entirely undivided forces of both churches and 
clergy, and all that appalling public sentiment, which such 
forces are able to generate. In our determination to resist the 
mad intolerance, which judges character by those ever harped- 
on doctrines about which even among the best of men fhere will 
ever be as many minds as there are differences of temperament 
and education; and in our determination to acknowledge no 
other test of character than the life, we may be sure that we 
shall not fail to provoke such an array against ourselves, as 
will be utterly overwhelming, if we put not our trust in the 
living God. Brave then let us be to meet the frowns of our 
fellows : but all the while let us be meek and humble in the 
consciousness that our bravery will die, and our cause be de- 
feated, unless we keep our hearts in contact with the Divine 
heart, and draw from thence the courage and strength, which 
that great heart can alone supply. 



DISCOURSE m PETERBORO, 



J^I^XJ^RY 33, 1859. 



A TEAR ago I gave yon a discourse in favor of tlie religion 
of reason. To-daj I give yon another. That discourse, wher- 
ever it circulated, was severely criticised, and this will probably 
experience no more tender treatment than did that. 

Were men but mere machines, they could reflect but little 
honor on their Maker. It is because they are free agents — -'free 
to choose to know Grod, and free to be ignorant of Him — ^free 
to grow either in likeness or unlikeness to Him — that they are 
capable of doing Him large honor. That day, if it shall ever 
come, in which all the intelligent creatures of His universe shall 
choose this divine knowledge, will realize our present concep- 
tions of the highest possible glorification of G-od. For the 
power of this knowledge is to produce in all who choose it 
likeness to Him : and likeness to Him is the greatest honor that 
can be rendered to Him. Indeed, so far as we can see, is not 
the making of this likeness perfect and universal, the one work 
of God and of all who through His renovating grace become 
" workers together with Him?" The prophet says : "And he 
shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." A beautiful fancy 
connected with these words is that as the silversmith has suffi- 
ciently purified the metal when it is brought to reflect his face 
perfectly, so God will be satisfied with the progress of a human 
character when He shall see in it his own. 

As, then, our likeness to God is the highest honor we are 
capable of yielding Him, so, to grow in this likeness, should be 



22 THE EELIGION OF KEASOX. 

our incessant and absorbing aim. That it is also our own high- 
est enjoyment is manifest. Though of this we are to make 
comparatively trivial account. Since there is no other way in 
which we can so unequivocally and fully testify our regard for 
our earthly friend, as in studying his character, and copying 
his virtues, so the best praise we can offer God is that likeness 
to Him which results from our deep interest in his character 
through our knowledge and love of it. 

That the one great duty of life is to grow in resemblance to 
God, was deeply felt by the Psalmist, when he exclaimed : "I 
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Nor less 
deeply was it felt by the Apostle, when prompted to say : " We 
know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." 

The law of our assimilation to the ruling interests of our 
hearts operates no less su.rely and rapidly in upward than in 
downward directions. All see how certain and swift is the 
miser's process for shrivelling his soul. All see that the sensu- 
alist sinks his whole nature to the level of his sensuality. All 
see that the character of the ambitious man derives its color and 
cast from no higher objects than those which come within the 
range of his ambition. But no less true is it that he who makes 
God his study and desire becomes godlike. He discerns, com- 
prehends and conforms to the divine principles. Thankfully 
and joyfully does he fall in with the divine methods and arrange- 
ments. Habitually and impressively does his life reflect much 
of the divine wisdom and beauty. Thus does he go forward, 
fulfilling the one grand purpose of his existence — assimilation 
to his heavenly Father — until, at length, his heart freed from 
all evil, and his intellect emerged from all darkness, he stands 
like the Angel of the Apocalypse in the very sun. 

That likeness to God results from knowing Him, is taught by 
the Apostle when he.says : " We shall be like Him, for we 
shall see Him as He is." To know God is to love Him ; and 
we can not love Him without being like Him. How, then, we 
can best study the Divine character to the end that our own 
shall most resemble it, is the great problem which every man is 
to solve, and with the practical solutions of which he is to make 
beautiful and blessed every day of his life. 

The sun, moon and stars, and the globe we inhabit, are all 
witnesses for God. Innumerable other sources are there which 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 23 

flow with divine knowledge. The whole course of providence 
testifies that God is strong and wise and good. Yery emphatic 
is such testimony through those men and women who, here and 
there in all ages, have by their large partaking and faithful 
illustration of the Divine Spirit taught the world the character 
and excellence of that Spirit. Prophets there have been whose 
mighty words and sublime lives were rich manifestations of 
Grod. High above them all is his ''beloved Son," Jesus, " full 
of grace and truth," Jesus, " filled with all the fullness of God," 
Jesus, such an incarnation of the divine wisdom and goodness 
and loveliness, such a matchless exhibition of the divine charac- 
ter as made it no exaggeration in the Apostle to call him "God 
manifest- in the flesh." " Looking unto Jesus," linto this bright- 
est and fullest expression of God, is preeminently the means 
for increasing in the knowledge, love and likeness of God. 

Thus abundant are the means for acquainting ourselves with 
God. We can not remain ignorant of Him if we are disposed 
to study Him. We may know Him, if we will, and as we have 
already said, to know Him is to love Him and be like Him. 
The diligent and honest student can learn " by the things that 
are made," what is that perfect law that converts the soul. But 
in the words and lives of prophets, and above all in the words 
and life of Jesus, he can learn it more surely, comprehensively, 
and accurately. 

Such are the circumstances of men. Now, which in these 
circumstances is the religion best adapted to promote their like- 
ness to God ?. There are but two religions in the world. One 
is that of nature or reason ; and the ten thousand varieties of 
the other all come properly under the name of the conventional 
or doctrinal religion. 

I made preeminent the '' looking unto Jesus." I might with 
truth have said that it surpasses the sum total of all other means 
for producing likeness to God. But alas ! the religious world, 
instead of " looking unto Jesus," is chiefly busy with the doc- 
trinal systems and questions which sectaries and creed-mong- 
ers have coupled with his name ! Immeasurably more import- 
ant do they count it to have orthodox views in regard to the 
trinity, the atonement, and the future life, than to imbibe the 
spirit of Christ and to submit all the relations and departments 
and duties of life to the sway of his principles. 



24 THE RELIGION OF REASON". 

The prevalent idea is that Jesus introduced a new religion, 
and made essential to salvation faith in his Godship, the atone- 
ment, and in other doctrines peculiar to that religion. But he 
did not. 

The religion which Jesus so perfectly illustrated with his lips 
and life was no other than the religion of reason — that one and 
only true religion which is adapted to all ages and all peoples, 
and which stands opposed to all those fabrications of the cun- 
ning, and all those superstitions of the credulous, which are 
called religion. These fabrications and superstitions, and, in 
short, every other religion than that of reason, Jesus confronted. 
No cabalism or mysticism found any favor with him. The ];e- 
ligion he taught was so obviously true as to make its appeal to 
natural sense and universal intuition. So simple was it that he 
found no occasion for sending men to books and priests to 
acquire an understanding of it. On the contrary, he put them 
upon their own convictions for the solution of its problems, and 
asked them: "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is 
right ?" He found reason outraged by monstrous claims in the 
name of religion : and the one work of his ministry — the one 
work which, amid all the storms of passion and prejudice and 
bigotry he pursued so unfalteringly and calmly and sublimely 
— was to reestablish the dominion of reason. He found com- 
mon-sense reduced to a ruinous discount by its concessions to 
religious tricks and fooleries ; and he undertook to restore it to 
par. Such was then and is now the whole of the religion of 
Jesus. It is a common-sense religion. Wide as is its realm, it 
is but commensurate with common-sense, and one with it. To 
bring the whole man and the whole life under the reign of rea- 
son is its sole office. The true religion is nothing more nor 
less than a "reasonable service;" and wherever there is the 
most reasonable man, there is the most truly religious man. 

We denied that Jesus made faith in certain doctrines essen- 
tial to salvation. Nor is it true that he made faith in his literal 
self thus essential. What he means by faith in himself is faith 
in the Christ principle and Christ character. Hence, salvation 
may come to him who has never heard of Christ. Cordially to 
believe in that principle of divine goodness, and truly to possess 
the character which grows oat of this cordial belief, is the suffi- 
cient, ay, and the sole salvation. 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 25 

The cliurcli and priesthood will nevertheless long continue to 
hold that this faith in doctrines is essential. For, beside the 
force of habit in the case, thej will hardly be insensible to the 
fact that their surrender of the necessity of this faith would 
involve the surrender of themselves. When the true religion 
shall prevail, and men shall be judged by their life and charac- 
ter rather than by their adoption or rejection of creeds, the 
church, in the common-sense of the word, will have disap- 
peared, and the priesthood have lost its vocation. When there 
shall be no more battles to fight concerning the doctrines, there 
will be no more occasion for sectarian churches ; and when re- 
ligion shall require only a good life and a good character, the 
learning peculiar to a priest will be as superfluous for the cure 
of souls as is that of a geologist to teach the farmer how to hold 
his plow, or that of a lawyer to negotiate the simple exchange 
of a bushel of wheat for a piece of meat. Every other religion 
must have its priesthood, for a scholastic training is necessary 
to unravel its knots. Every other religion must have an order 
of men capable of exploring its mysteries. But in the religion 
of Jesus there are no knots and no mysteries. I admit that 
both heaven and earth are full of mysteries. Paul, in writing 
to Timothy, refers to some of them. But I deny that any of 
them come within the range of the true religion. All its essen- 
tial teachings are intelligible to common-sense. Nay, simple 
love is the fulfilling of its whole law. Hence, this religion 
needs no priesthood, unless it be that " royal priesthood" in 
which there are no grades, and to which every disciple, however 
learned or unlearned, belongs. How different this religion, the 
disciples of which are each his own priest, from those religions 
which require a sacerdotal caste to study their volumes, their 
legendary and mystic lore ! How different from those religions 
which require a class of magicians because the religions them- 
selves are magic ! 

Nothing can be more absurd than to make faith in the doc- 
trines the pivot of salvation. For this is to make such faith 
the test of character, since it must turn exclusively upon our 
character whether we are saved or lost. But such faith is not 
absolutely subject to our control, and therefore can not be a test 
of character. To the unqualified proposition that men can not, 
and are not, bound to govern their beliefs, I confess I do not 



26 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

assent. Every man is bound to believe that goodness is good- 
ness, and wickedness is wickedness — for this he can do if his 
moral affections are right, and it is in his power to have them 
right. But when the question is one of the understanding 
rather than of the heart, then owing to constitutional or educa- 
tional differences, one man will believe and another disbelieve ; 
one man will come to one conclusion, and another to another. 
Hence, while a person must hot be excused for saying he can 
not believe it wrong to lie and steal, he may be for not seeing 
sufficient evidence to warrant the popular view of the atone- 
ment and of the Trinity. Unbelief in the one case is necessarily 
connected with a wicked heart. In the other, it may exist in 
connection with the holiest heart. 

The conventional or doctrinal religion is not adapted to make 
men good. It teaches that we must believe the doctrines in 
order to be good, and that it is illegitimate and vain to seek to 
become good in any other way. Hence, they who receive this 
teaching, instead of trying to be good, try to believe the doc- 
trines. Hence, too, they are not expected to be good, and do 
not themselves expect to be good until they have believed 
them. Again, many may never be able to believe them : and 
again, many give abundant proof in their lives that the doc- 
trines may be believed without making the believer good. 
Moreover, whatever the goodness of those who are so strenuous 
for the doctrines, there is generally coupled with their strenu- 
ousness the uncharitable condemnation of all who are unable to 
believe them ; and this intolerance is, to say the least, a great 
blemish and drawback upon their tj^pe of goodness. Only here 
and there is it that the goodness of these excessively doctrinal 
religionists rises above this intolerance. 

Absurd, indeed, is it to require men, on peril of perdi- 
tion, to subscribe to certain explanations of certain facts in 
religion. The fact that Christ died for us, all agree to. But it 
is held that we are as much bound, and that it is as important, 
to agree to certain speculations about it, and to certain systems 
of faith built upon it, as to the fact itself. Again, we are 
agreed that Christ spoke the words of his Father. But it is 
held that we must perish unless we can bring ourselves to the 
conclusion that he was, in respect to all tlie essential attributes 
of Deitj^, one with his Father. The flict, too, that we shall in 



THE EELIGION OF REASON. 27 

the next life find it well with the righteous and ill with the 
wicked, and that all should cherish a deep and abiding sense of 
their accountabilitj, is denied by none of us. But in vain, too, 
is all this, unless we subscribe to certain views of heaven and 
hell. 

As well may it be said that a man must not plow, nor sow, 
nor reap, until he can understand how his crops grow, as that 
he must not enter upon a religious, life and expect to be good 
until he can comprehend the doctrines and philosophy of reli- 
gion. At many points in them the most learned, wise, and holy 
differ widely. The masses, of course, do. Indeed, it is not ex- 
pected that they should comprehend these things. Their faith 
in them, as all honest theologians will readily admit, is not ex- 
pected to be comprehensive and intelligent, but only narrow, 
superstitious, blind. 

I have not been arguing that the prevalent doctrines and 
philosophy of religion are false and worthless. There is much 
of truth and value in them. All I insist on is that the import- 
ance of a full and precise knowledge of them is overrated ; and 
that mistakes in regard to them are not necessarily fatal. For 
instance, a man may be good, and yet not see that he who '■'■in- 
creased in wisdom and in favor with God," and who " learned by 
the things he suffered," and who confessed his ignorance of the 
times of future 'events, is the all- wise and unchangeable God. 
A man may be good, though he can not see the reasonableness 
of the theory of the twofold nature of Christ, and consequently 
can not be able to reconcile with absolute divine perfection, 
either this want or this growth of knowledge. Again, a man 
may conceive that God can delegate to Jesus or another agent 
power enough, to enable him to build a world; and he may 
acquiesce even in the giving of the name of God to him who 
wields this great power of God. Nevertheless he may shrink 
from admitting the agent to be the very God. So, too, he may 
feel it proper to worship Christ, although unconvinced that 
Christ is the one God. For he may hold that truth, wherever 
it is, is worthy to be worshipped ; and that in Christ is its per- 
fect personification. Now, I do not say that this man is right 
in all, or even in any of this. But I do say that however 
wrong be may be in it, he may nevertheless be good. Another 
thing I would say is, a man may be good, and yet not fall in 



28 THE RELIGIOlSr OF EEASON. * 

witli all the popular views of tlie atonement. He may see that 
suffering one for another, even to the laying down of life, is 
altogether reasonable. But that God should be angry with his 
children, and should require an innocent victim to appease his 
wrath, may strike him as an exceedingly unreasonable part of 
the ecclesiastical machinery. It may strike him as turning the 
loving Father into a bloody pagan deity. A man may be good, 
and yet believe that the hearty repentance of the sinner is of 
itself sufficient ground for his forgiveness. He may even be- 
lieve that Jesus teaches this in the parable of the prodigal son. 

That the early Christians interpreted the atonement as a ma- 
jority of modern Christians do, is perhaps true ; for such inter- 
pretation would be a very natural outgrowth of Jewish educa- 
tion. Beautiftd and impressive to the Jew must have been the 
analogy, however real or fanciful, between the literal sacrifice 
and Christ — ^between the lamb slain for the sin of an individual 
or a family, and "the Lamb of- Grod which taketh away the sins 
of the world." The argument for receiving and relying on. 
Christ derived from this analogy must have been very imposing 
to the Jewish mind. 

But it is said that all this philosophy, and all these doctrine?, 
were taught by Jesus. If they were, it does not follow that 
our misapprehensions of them would make our salvation im- 
possible. But how can we be sure that they were all taught by 
him ? The Bible can not make us entirely sure of it. For it 
is, at the most, a record of but the substance of what Jesus 
spoke — certainly not always of his precise words. He did not 
write them. ISTor were they written as they fell from his lips ; 
nor probably until many years after. Hence, we may not have 
so much as the substance of what he said in every recorded in- 
stance. The idea that the authors of their respective parts of 
the Bible were moved by God to write, word by word, and 
that, by a perpetual miracle, every word has been preserved 
from all possible change in itself and in its connections, is quite 
too superstitious and absurd to be entertained by any reasonable 
mind. Another fact of great account in interpreting the Bible 
is, that Jesus was a poet, and that few poets have ever spoken 
,so figuratively and hyperbolically. They who mistake his pic- 
ture-language for words of philosophical precision will be liable 
to construe him very absurdly. Let me not be taken as under- 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 29 

rating Jesus bj calling liim s^ poet. Tlie poet is tlie superior 
being. He deals with the essence and soul df things — common 
minds with but their bod j and phenomena. 

But to return to the chief duty inculcated in this discourse — 
growing in likeness to God. In saying that this is to be at- 
tained by "looking unto Jesus," I did not mean that supersti- 
tious looking, which expects in return the magic transformation 
of the looker, but that rational looking to his principles, virtues, 
spirit, life, which is accompanied by the deepest yearnings of 
the soul to make them all our own. It is in this wise that we 
become like Christ ; and likeness to Christ is likeness to God. 
For notwithstanding his repeated acknowledgment of inferiority 
to the Father, he claimed that he is one with Him. If he is 
not the Father, nevertheless he has the spirit of the Father. 
That he is not the Father otherwise than in spirit and character, 
is, perhaps, inferable from his prayer that his disciples may be- 
come one even as he and the Father are one. But the oneness 
of his disciples can be no further than in spirit and chai^acter. 

How insulting to God and degrading to man is this sacred 
sorcery which is put in the place of the religion of reason ! 
How false every view of the new birth, (which I admit who- 
ever is saved must experience,) that makes it either more or 
less than a new character ! How foolish and fanatical every 
expectation of a salvation, which does not consist and prove 
itself in a new and good life ! But that a new character and a 
new and good life are not what the mass of religionists under- 
stand by the salvation of which they profess themselves to be 
subjects, is manifest from the fact that in character and life they 
are undistinguishable from others. They are no less enslaved 
to party than are others ; and such enslavement is among the 
very strongest proofs that the subject of it moves upon a low 
plane of being, and is unfitted for a higher. It has often 
occurred to me that as the palaeontologist has his Silurian and 
Old Red Sandstone periods, his Carboniferous and other forma- 
tions in which to pursue his study of fossil plants and animals, 
so they, who thousands of centuries hence shall write the his- 
tory of man, will also break up the past into large divisions. 
Instead of the petty distinction of a Greek or Roman age, they 
will grasp under one name ten thousand and twice ten thou- 
sand years. What name will they give to our times ? Wiiat 



30 THE EELIGION OF REASON. 

else can it be than tTie age of paffty ? It promises- to be -a long 
age. It has already run througb. several thousand years ; and 
judging from the present sway of party, there is a much longer 
race before it. How the palaeontologists gloat over their dis- 
coveries ! But far greater will be the j.oy of these historians 
when, in digging for their fossils, they shall strike upon such a 
rich specimen of party architects and party magicians as a Van 
Buren, a Buchanan, or a Douglas ! or upon an eminent Presby- 
terian or Methodist, or other sectarian leader ! 

Hasten, God, the coming of the age of individualism ! 
that age in which men shall scorn to work for party, and to be 
helped by party ; in which they shall identify themselves with 
all mankind and work for all mankind, and aspire to no better 
lot in life than their individual merits under Heaven's blessing 
can earn for them I • 

I said that our religionists are generally the slaves of party. 
Ask them, for instance, to help you put a stop to sectarianism ; 
to help you overcome that monster who drags down and dwarfs 
so large a share of the whole human family — and you ask in 
vain. They prefer adheriiig to their religious parties, and re- 
maining in their Baptist, Episcopal and other sectarian in 
closures, to identifying themselves with all the friends of right- 
eousness. In a word, they prefer gratifying a narrow and party 
spirit, to cultivating one that is broad and catholic. Entreat -them 
to help you elect law-makers who will shut the dram-shop, and 
thereby dry the tears of tens of thousands of wives and mothers, 
and make murder, and the blasphemies of drunken lips and 
other great crimes, comparatively rare, and in the face of your 
entreaties they will cling to their political party, and vote for 
rum-drinkers and rum-sellers, and rum-makers. Or if you en- 
treat them to take pity on the fugitive slave, and wield their 
political power against kidnappers, you will find how much 
stronger is their attachment to party than to freedom and jus- 
tice and mercy ; and how much more ready they are in this 
case, as well as in others, to go with the majority against Christ, 
than with the minority for him. These who are doctrinal rather 
than Christlike Christians, have a great horror of minorities. 
Their professed Master, when hanging on the cross, and deserted 
by all His disciples, was reduced to a minority of one. But 
these doctrinal Christians have no taste for this lonely condi- 



THE KELIGION OF KEASON. 31 

tion. Indeed tliey will steer as wide as possible of all minori- 
ties, and for the surest majority. Christians bent on being in 
the majority! What a solecism! The Bible says: "Thou 
shalt not follow a multitude to do evil." It might say more. 
In this world of abounding wickedness, the multitude can not 
be followed without doing evil. 

What a sad exhibition of party spirit among professing 
Christians was there .at the last election ! The religious press 
and the temperance press called on the people to vote for can- 
didates who were willing to let the dram-shop continue its work 
of death, and the kidnapper prowl after his prey through the 
whole length and breadth of our State ! I recollect that one of 
the religious newspapers made an especial and very urgent call 
on praying men to vote for them. The excuse of the religious 
conscience for voting for such candidates is, that they can be 
elected, and that candidates who stand up for God and humanity 
can not be ! Will Christians never learn that, instead of voting 
for candidates who are on the side of wrong, they are bound .to 
do all they honestly can to cripple the power and reduce the 
influence of such candidates ! Have I a bad neighbor ? Then 
it should be as much my object to contract the sphere of his 
injuriousness, as to enlarge my good neighbor's sphere of use- 
fulness. All this is obvious in the light of a reasonable reli- 
gion. But alas ! the current religion is divorced from reason ! 

A sad spectacle, indeed, was that to which I have referred. 
So far as our State was concerned, all interest in freedom and 
temperance had nearly died out. Their professed friends had 
with very few exceptions, gone into the political parties. They 
were no longer professing to abolish Slavery ; but they were 
contenting themselves with idle talk against its extension. They 
no longer proposed to shut up the dram-shop ; and though they 
did not altogether cease to speak for temperance, yet were the 
words of most of them vague and heartless, and more fitted, 
and doubtless more intended to veil their apostasy, and mitigate 
their consciousness of it than to accomplish any good for the 
great reform. In these circumstances a handful aroused them- 
selves to save, if possible, these precious causes from utter ex- 
tinction. They taxed themselves heavily to hire halls and 
presses in which to make their appeals to their old fellow-la- 
borers. But all in vain. The dram-shop and kidnapping were 



32 THE RELIGI02T OF REASON. 

never before so triumphant. The Christianity of the State took 
the side of these institutions. It went exultingly with the 
sweeping majority, and laughed at and despised the little mi- 
nority. But, thanks to Grod, such a Christianity is a counterfeit. 
If it were not, then would the real Christianity be as poor and 
detestable a religion as was ever imposed on human credulity. 

I referred to the fact that these professed friends of temper- 
ance, even while stabbing it to the heart, had the effrontery to 
talk for it. They talk for it still ; as much since the election as 
they did before it. They hold meetings and resolve in favor of 
the suppression by Government of the sale of intoxicating 
drinks. All this, too, with as much of an air of sincerity and 
solemnity as if their votes had always corresponded with those 
talks and resolves. 

I confess my alarm at these things. For, manifestly, this 
machinery of Temperance Societies and Temperance Agencies, 
by which these cunning men have served party purposes at the 
expense of corrupting the great body of temperance men and 
ruining the cau.se of temperance, is to be kept up. And, what 
is more, these cunning men, who study and understand the 
public mind, would not have dared to persevere in their impo- 
sitions upon it, had they not been persuaded of its boundless 
credulity and deep degradation. How, for instance, could a 
gentleman, w^ho spent his time last Fall in electioneering for a 
rum ticket, and in decrying the soundness on temperance of the 
temperance ticket, be bold enough to go from town to town in 
our county with his proposition for shutting up the dram-shop, 
unless he had first convinced himself, that the people are as 
ready to be duped as he is to dupe them ? 

Whence comes it that these professedly religious men can 
behave so unreasonably and wickedly in an election ? It is 
largely owing to the fact that they are misled by their religion. 
Among them are good men, who are really better than their 
religion— their adopted religion — for no man is better than his 
real religion. But in the case of all of them religion has been 
taken on trust ; and is, therefore, an unreasoned and unreasona- 
ble thing, instead of being the precious product of their free and 
sovereign reason. Such persons are for the most part, enslaved 
to the Church instead of being "the Lord's freemen ;" idolaters 
of the Bible rather than worshippers of God. Whither the 




THE RELIGION OF REASON. 33 

Clmrcli leads they almost universally follow. What its au- 
thorized expounders of the Bible say is the Bible, is sufilcient 
to satisfy their conscience. 

Every man's religion, to be worth any thing to him, must 
stand in his own judgment. By his own judgment must his 
life be regulated. The one standard by which he is to try his 
religion must be within and not without him. To that standard 
must he bring the Church — yes, and the Bible also. Gladly 
must he let them inform his judgment ; but he must never let 
them over-ride it. Even the Bible was made for man, not man 
for the Bible. Even the Bible is the servant, and not the mas- 
ter, of human reason. I must receive nothing at the expense 
of mj reason. To honor it, is at all times my highest religious 
duty. For reason is the voice of Grod within me, commanding 
what is right, and forbidding what is wrong. By my reason 
only can I know Him. 

I do not forget the plausible objections to making reason the 
standard in religion. They are only plausible, however. 

First : the reason of many a man, if not of most men, and in- 
deed of all men, is incompetent to he the standard. Then is it ne- 
cessarily incompetent to choose the standard. For how, if it can 
not decide for itself what is religious truth, can it be capable of 
choosing the church, or creed, or man, or book that shall decide it? 
May I make the Bible the standard ? Certainly not until after 
my reason has passed approvingly upon the claims of the book, 
and that too in the light of the book itself, and not merely nor 
mainly in the light of what is said about it. But if after this 
process I make the Bible the standard, is it not all one with mak- 
ing reason the standard? I add that no man can be a Christian 
whose reason is inadequate to decide what is Christianity. 

Second: Making reason the standard of religion woidd make as 
many religions as there are persons — reason haying in every mind 
a more or less different play from what it has in every other mind. ^ 
I admit that there would be a great diversity of religious views, 
though the religion of all holy hearts would be substantially 
the same. But what of this diversity ? Is not such a result of 
the workings of free intelligence infinitely preferable to a con- 
formity which is arrived at by holding reason in abevance ? 
Oh! how much longer must men, for the sake of avoiding this 
diversity in religious ,faith, continue to " go it blind" ? But, 
3 



34 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

beside tliat this ecclesiastical policy results in the degradation 
of reason, and of the whole man, there is but little harmony 
secured in return for all this expense. For, brimful as is the 
religious world of efforts to establish a common standard out- 
side of reason, and to enforce conformity, it is also brimful of 
diverse faiths and of relentless quarrels. 

An error as great as common, is that we honor God by sur- 
rendering our judgment to the Church and the Bible. "We 
deeply dishonor Him by it. Unswerving fidelity to our con- 
victions is the highest service we are capable of rendering Him ; 
for in our convictions is our highest possible present sense of 
God. The Bible or Church view of God may surpass our 
own immeasurably. But we can not claim the credit of it by 
simply adopting it ; nor until it has become our own by being 
wrought into our convictions, and made a part of ourselves. 
"We may adopt the religion of the Bible and the Church, and 
yet be atheists. For the adoption may simply prove our en- 
slavement to authority, and that we are more willing to be the 
subjects of an unquestioning and blind faith, than to do and 
suffer what is needful in order to become intelligently and truly 
religious. For this very reason, that their religion is not their 
own — is adopted and superficial instead of inwrought — the 
mass of religionists are atheists. 

But I shall be asked if I do not believe the Bible. I do. I 
believe it to be incomparably the best of books. Daily 
should it be studied and commented on in every school. Daily 
should its pages be pondered in the closet. Every morning 
and every evening should its precious lessons be repeated in 
the assembled family. The purest and sublimest morality is 
that of the Bible. Abundant proof is there in many of its 
pages that they who spoke or recorded the great words had 
drunk deeper of divine inspiration than any other men. It is 
because they had, that we always derive from this blessed book 
a deeper sense of holiness and a deeper sense of wickedness 
than from any other source. What words so fire our hatred of 
oppression as some which prophets spoke ? "When, too, do we 
so much appreciate goodness as while our hearts are melting 
over some of the lip and life-utterances of Jesus ? 

Nevertheless, there are portions of the Bible which are worth 
very little; and which, were they found elsewhere, no one 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 35 

would deem worth much. Moreover, if we are shocked at the 
supposition that there are mistakes and untruths in it, it is only 
because of our false and superstitious education. We must pass 
upon the Bible just as freely as upon any other book : and no- 
thing in it that is repugnant to our reason must be allowed to 
come into our faith. We are not to reject whatever in it is 
above our present comprehension. That would be most unrea- 
sonable. But, whatever is clearly counter to reason, we owe it 
to reason, to ourselves, and to Grod to reject. If, for instance, 
there is any passage in the Bible, (I do not say there is one,) in 
which Grod is represented as being partial — as being guilty, it 
may be, of the monstrous partiality of loving one unborn child 
and hating another — we niust not, for the sake of saving the 
reputation and authority of the book, acquiesce in a representa- 
tion that outrages all our just conceptions of God. To save 
these conceptions is infinitely more important than to save the 
book. If, too, we find that Paul (I do not say that we do) re- 
presents woman as inferior to man, or as having lower and less 
rights than man, we must not, to save Paul, sanction his wrong 
against woman. Justice must be accorded to her claims at 
whatever expense to his speculations. 

I am not, in these remarks, denying aught of the value of the 
Bible. Incomputable is that value, if for no other reason than 
that it contains the life of Christ. But I may be asked how, 
since I am not confident that the Bible is all true, I can be con- 
fident that it gives the true life of Christ ? My answer is, that 
such a life could not be fabricated. It must have been sub- 
stantially what the Bible represents it to be. Such a reality 
transcends all the possibilities of fiction. It can not be the coin- 
age of the imagination. It can not be a picture without an orig- 
inal. Besides, had it been within the compass of -a good man's 
ability to invent such a life, his goodness would have prevented 
his palming it on the world as a reality. I scarcely need add 
that any approach to such a life lies wholly without the range 
of a bad man's conceptions, and can find no place among his 
possible inventions. And what if it were admitted that such a 
life could be written at this day by Charles Dickens or Mrs. 
Stowe, or other persons of their fertile genius, nevertheless it 
must not be forgotten that it would be written by the light of 
the actual life of Jesus, and would therefore be substantially but 
a cQpj. 



36 THE EELIGION OF REASON. 

Unspeakably liappj fact is it that men are outgrowing the 
religions whicli -have afflicted and debased tbem. An ignorant 
age very naturally submits to a religion of authority ; but an in- 
telligent age, wliich demands and realizes progress in every other 
direction, will not be content to have the dead past continue to 
furnish the religion of the living present. Signs are rapidly 
multiplying that the time has come for every man to have his 
own religion: not to adopt it from his neighbor, his priest, his 
church ; but to construct it for himself In the province of 
reason, when pervaded by Divine influences, and especially in 
the life of Jesus, who was the perfect impersonation of reason, 
because He was filled with those illuminating, holy, and sweet 
influences which can alone preserve the freest and fullest exer- 
cise of reason — there are abundant materials for such construc- 
tion. Indeed, as in effect I have already said, what a man has 
to do to answer the calls of the true religion, is to keep all his 
appetites, passions, and inerests in subjection to his reason. I 
a,dmit that he can not do this without help — the help of that 
same spirit which dwelt in Jesus — and which, by the way, is as 
free to us as it was to him. In a word, all he has to do is to 
keep his reason in the ascendant. Then he will be like God. 
For to obey reason is to obey God. To obey it is to bring our- 
selves into harmony with Him, and to make ourselves partakers 
of His character. To disobey it is to prefer the character of 
rebels and atheists. 

The religions, including even that called Christianity, but 
which is not Christianity, have proved themselves false by ijieir 
failure to overcome the great crimes and abominations. War, 
slavery, drunkenness, and the various oppressions of woman 
still abound. Give however, reason its full play — true reason, 
I mean, and not the mixture of • passion and prejudice, which 
they who have stifled the voice of reason, are wont to confound 
with it — and these crimes and abominations would fast disap- 
pear. That they are still making hell on earth is chiefly be- 
cause religions of authority put in pleas for them, and j ustify or 
apologize for them in the name of their sacred books and 
churches. Exalt reason, however, to the place of religion, or 
rather religion to the place of reason, and these crimes and 
abominations will depart. But, they will remain, and be rife 
just as long as there iB religious authoritj^ to keep them in 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 37 

countenance; just as long as men suffer others to decide religi- 
ous questions for tliem ; to be the keepers of their conscience 
and the moulders of their minds. So long as rum-drinkers and 
slaveholders have a religion distinct from reason, they will run 
to it for permission to continue to drink rum and to be slave- 
holders ; and they will not fail to get it. But once cut them 
off from their doctrinal or conventional religion, and throw 
them back upon their reason, and they will find it difficult to 
remain rum-drinkers and slaveholders. The South is full of 
the common religion, and hence the impossibility of peacefully 
dislodging her slavery. It is true that the religion of France 
v/as not essentially different from that of our own country. 
But so slender was its hold on the public mind, that it could 
not prevent the reason of France from abolishing Slavery. The 
abolition of French Slavery was largely owing to French infi- 
delity. Had that nation been more religious and less rational, 
her slavery would have continued to this day. 

It was the policy of Jesus to cut off the Jews from their spur- 
ious religion, and throw them back upon their convictions, and 
upon themselves. "And why," says he to them, "even of 
yourselves judge ye not what is right ?" The like policy should 
be pursued by the modern reformer. It is as indispensable now 
as it was then to get reason into the place of the current re- 
ligion. 

Our likeness to Grod ! The religion which has this God-hon- 
oring and man-ennobling aim is to be our religion. ISTever does 
a man's dignity appear so great as when seen in the light of his 
capacity for resembling his Maker. It is in this light that he 
is "the temple of God," and is never to be defiled by rum, to- 
bacco, nor any sensuality. And who, viewing man in this 
light, can be guilty of degrading him in thought, word or deed ? 
Who, having drunk in the spirit of this true religion, and, 
therefore, opened his eyes upon the. grandeur of man, can put 
upon his brother's limbs the chains of slavery, or consent to see 
him sunk to the guilty uses to which war sinks its hirelings? 
Or who, having, under the influences of this true religion, felt 
how great is man, can look with patience on his bondage to a' 
political or ecclesiastical party ? 

This religion, then, which recognizes man's capacity for re- 
sembline: his God, and which inculcates the duties o-row'm'X out- 



38 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

of that capacity — ^this is the only religion which can rid the 
world of the crimes that crowd it and the vices that have con- 
quered it. This alone can shnt up the dram-shop, and put an 
end to slavery and the other outrages upon the high nature of 
man. 

But I must proceed to notice some of the charges against 
those who hold the views taken in this discourse. 

We are accused of disparaging Christ because we refuse to be 
tested by certain mystic doctrines. Subscription to these doc- 
trines is held to be essential to his honor. Bat they make most 
of Christ who, whatever their errors of doctrine, cherish his 
spirit and live his life. On the contrary, they make least of 
him who war upon his spirit and life — 'free however they may 
be, of these doctrinal errors. 

The faith in Christ on which most rely is not that intelligent 
and cordial faith in his principles which good men alone can 
possess. But it is a faith of which wicked as well as good men 
can be the subjects — for it is superstitious, unintelligent and 
blind. 

We hold that they most honor Christ who believe that the 
religion he taught is the religion of simple reason ; and who 
also govern their lives by it. Let me add that I would have 
Christ honored in observing the rites and institutions as well as 
in espousing the comprehensive and essential principles of his 
religion. Let the principles be cordially adopted, and the rites 
and institutions carefully conformed to. For one, I would have 
the friends of Christ baptized with water, 'and in the manner in 
which he was. For one, I would have them partake of his ap- 
pointed supper, and around a table, and with conversation as 
did he and his disciples. For one, I would have them observe 
a Sabbath, and choose for it the same day of the week which he 
and his disciples did. Even in things which are counted among 
the unessential, it is safer and happier to walk in his steps than 
to depart from them. 

It is charged, too, that we are not Bible men. I admit that 
we are not any further than we live according to its great and 
everlasting principles. They are Bible men whose lives are in 
harmony with those principles; not they who trample upon 
them, at the same time that they make great merit of their pre- 
tended or imagined faith in the Bible. 



THE KELIGION OF REASON. 39 

AnotTier complaint is, that we would abolish the ministry. 
But we would not. We would have the Gospel preached ten- 
fold more abundantly than now. To this end, however, no 
clerical order of men is needed. So simple is the true Gospel 
that he who loves it is well able to preach it, even though he 
may have no more than common-sense and a common educa- 
tion. Here and there arise men of rare power for preaching it. 
Let such be encouraged and enabled to itinerate as did Paul 
and Barnabas among the churches. At the same time let the 
members of every church feel that, however few or unlearned 
they may be, they are, under the divine blessing, able through 
the proper exercise of their gifts to edify each other. 

I admit that a cultivated intellect adds immensely to the 
power of the preacher. But it need not be cultivated in the 
theological school. On the contrary, far more power to preach 
the common-sense, practical gospel of Jesus Christ is to be 
found in that general knowledge which the lawyer, or statesman, 
or enlightened merchant acquires in his intercourse with the 
world, than in the training of those institutions where religion 
IS taught as a trade, and years of apprenticeship are spent to gain 
an understanding of its mysteries. 

We are charged, too, with being Spiritualists. Some of us 
are and some of us are not Spiritualists. But what if we all 
were — still might we not all be Christians ? To be a spiritual- 
ist — ^that is, to believe that spirits can communicate with us — ^is 
no proof that a man is or is not a Christan. His cordial recep- 
tion, as evidenced in his life, of the great essential moral truths 
which come to him, whether in communications from spirits or 
from any other source, this and this alone proves that he is a 
Christian. If Spiritualism has been the occasion of harm to 
some, nevertheless there are others in whom it has wrought 
good. We have neighbors, whose religious life has been greatly 
improved by their interest in Spiritualism. I can not deny that 
Spiritualism is fraught with great evil to those who are foolish 
enough to welcome it as a new religion, and a substitute for 
Christianity. 

A favorite, and certainly a very winning doctrine of the 
Spiritualists, is, that a wicked man attracts wicked spirits, and 
a good man good ones. How protective, purifying, and every 
way happy must be its influence on him who truly believes it ! 



40 THE religio:n' of eeason. 

How efficient the motive it farnislies to avoid a bad and pur- 
sue a good life ! 

I must not to fail to add, in this connection, that the Spiritual- 
ists I met in my tours through the State, last fall, were nearly 
all reformers. They had broken off from both political and 
ecclesiastical parties, and were earnestly and openly devoting 
themselves to the abolition of sectarianism, slavery, intemper- 
ance, and other wrongs. I have no doubt that, in proportion 
to their numbers, Spiritualists cast tenfold as many votes for the 
Abolition and Temperance ticket as did others. Surely such a 
fact is highly commendatory of the influence of Spiritualism. 

It is also said that we are opposed to revivals. We believe 
in revivals of true religion, and rejoice in them. But we con- 
fess that of revivals in general we are very suspicious. And 
why should we not be ? It is true that they serve to fill up the 
churches ; but do they increase the sum total of humanity and 
holiness and happiness ? The revival of last year was preemi- 
nent for extent and commended character. But I am yet to be 
convinced that it has proved a public blessing. Survey the 
length and breadth of our State. Is not sectarian and party spirit, 
that power so mighty to shrivel and sink the soul, as rampant as 
ever ? Was there ever a year in Avhich the use of tobacco in- 
creased faster, or in which there was a more rapid multiplica- 
tion of dram-shops ? In no year among the last thirty, has so 
little interest been taken in the cause of temperance. Indeed, 
at the last election its professed friends seemed to delight in 
pouring contempt upon it. They were as eager to vote for rum 
men as they formerly had been to vote against them. And 
although there is still much talk (part sincere and part hypo- 
critical, and nearly all nonsensical) against the extension of 
Slavery, yet has there never been a year since the dauntless 
young hero, William Lloyd Garrison, first summoned the nation 
to abolish it, in which has been evinced so little purpose to 
abolish it. 

That there was a very unusual amount of religious tender- 
ness and susceptibility the last year is not to be denied. 
Heaven be thanked for it ; and may Heaven forgive the poor 
use men made of it ! Oh ! had the right stamp been present 
for making the right impression upon the molten metal ! Had 
but the religion of Christ and reason — ^the religion which, in a 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 41 

land of Slavery and dram-shops calls on its new-born disciples 
to make their first demonstration against those greatest enemies 
of God and man — ^had but that religion been offered to the 
tens of thousands of hearts that were then open to receive it — • 
what an array of practical Christians would have been the 
fruit of the revival ! But alas ! instead of this priceless bless- 
ing, the revival was perverted to the propagation of that worth- 
less doctrinal or conventional religion which keeps on good 
terms with Slavery, and flourishes among the dram-shops ! 

The city of ISTew-York was the great centre of the revival. 
But when I was there, two or three weeks ago, I heard that the 
use of tobacco and strong drink was increasing rapidly ; and 
several times I saw what I never see without sickness of soul, 
deep shame and sorrow and disgust, city cars labeled : " Colored 
people allowed in this car." What an insult to our equal 
brethren ! "What an insult to our common Father ! What a 
blasphemous denial of His right to color as He will the varieties 
of the human family ! 

Now, these abominations exist in that city, because her re- 
vived, augmented, multiplied churches acquiesce in them. 
Every one knows, that were her pulpits and pews to speak, and 
vote as they should, all her cars would be opened as readily to 
people of one complexion as another. Every one knows that 
the dram-shops of New- York could not withstand the combined 
testimony of her churches. But her churches are not churches 
of Jesus Christ any further than they are actively against her 
dram-shops and her outrages upon the colored man. 

Peterboro, as you remember, shared in last year's revival. 
But, is she the better for it ? Has she less sectarianism ? Much 
more. Has she proved herself more true to temperance and 
freedom? Much less. Have even her pastors, who were so 
active in the revival, shown their own profiting by it? Of only 
one of them can I speak. I well remember how earnestly at 
former elections he called on the people to vote the abolition 
and temperance ticket; but I am told that he was never known 
to open his lips for it at the last election. It was a sad change 
in my old friend and pastor. Was it the revival or something 
else that wrought it ? True, he is of late much taken up with 
the doctrines of religion. Bat does he hold that he is, there- 
fore, excused from its practice ? True, he is of late very busy 



42 THE KELIGION OF REASON. 

in dealing damnation among those who dissent from liis inter- 
pretation of these doctrines. But is the merit of this work so 
great as to atone for the neglect at the ballot-box of the bleed- 
ing slave and the bleeding cause of temperance ? Oh I when 
will these doctrinal religionists learn that the promise of heaven 
is to him that " worheih righteousness ?" — that " he that doetJi 
righteousness is righteous," and that "whosoever doeih not 
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his 
brother." 

Finally, we are charged with being infidels. ISTow, although 
I would advise that this and all other false charges against us 
be borne with good temper, I am, nevertheless, of the opinion 
that we should quit the defensive, and pursue our assailants. 
When they charge us with being infidels because of our defec- 
tive creeds, let us charge them with being infidels because of their 
wicked deeds. And this we are to do, not in the spirit of revenge, 
but for the purpose of putting them upon juster thoughts of 
themselves, and, as may perhaps follow, upon a needed condem- 
nation of themselves. A -very large majority of those who have 
the impudence to bring this charge against ns prove themselves 
atheists by their treatment of their fellow-men. All persons 
are atheists who do not honor God by honoring his children. 
Hence, all are atheists who refuse to eat with their colored breth- 
ren, or to sit by their side in the carriage or the pew. And if there 
are Christians that vote for men who recognize the legality of 
Slavery, and wield the power of their office to perpetuate the 
bondage of the slave, none the less atheistic is such voting. And 
so, too, voting for those who recognize the sacred rights of pro- 
perty in intoxicating liquors, when offered for sale as a beverage, 
and who are in favor of keeping up the dram-shop, is none the 
less atheistic, because there are Christians who are guilty of it. 

But I must bring my too long discourse to a close. This is 
an unsaved world. Superstitions have been employed to save 
it, and of course unsuccessfully. A misinterpreted and corrup- 
ted Christianity has been found inadequate. It will remain 
an unsaved world until trial shall be made of the true Christ- 
ianity — of that religion of nature and reason which tests men not 
by their doctrines, but " by their fruits," and which makes it the 
one great work of every person to elevate himself and all within 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 43 

his reacL to tlie very liigliest resemblances of God tliat humanity 
is capable of attaining. 

Shall we, my neighbors, have a part in bringing the world un- 
der the power of this only saving religion ? Let us remember 
that we can not have it, unless we bring ourselves under its pow- 
er. We can not be instrumental in spreading abroad this only 
true religion unless we have made it the treasure of our own 
hearts and the attraction and glory of our own lives. 



DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO, 



JTIISTE 19. 185 9 



"What is tlie true religion ? No otlier question propounded 
to mortals is so important. Answered, however, it easily can 
be, if only tlie true Grod is known. For, wherever He is known, 
there also is the true religion known. The religion of a people 
necessarily adjusts itself to their apprehensions of God. Know 
they the true God? — then is theirs the true religion. But spu- 
rious is it if they know him not. Hence the question to the so- 
lution of which we address ourselves is. What is the true God ? 

That in knowledge and power God is infinite may be assumed. 
But what is his moral charcter ? Is He just, reasonable, benig- 
nant, loving, beneficent? Or, is He unjust, arbitrary, capri- 
cious, malignant, injurious ? To compress the question into the 
fewest words, Is it in good or evil that He delights ? 

In order to obtain a surely right answer to this question, we 
must study not the opinions which are formed of God, but God 
himself. We must look not at what others tell us of His works, 
but at the works themselves. We must go not to men's records 
of Him, but to his own : not to books written by men, but to 
books written by God — to such books as the sun and stars and 
earth. For not only is it true that God can be " understood by 
the things that are made," but it is also true that by no other 
means can He be understood. Only in this vast creation which 
we call Nature, can we find the certain evidences of God's 
nature. 

Man is a part of this vast creation : and in the light of him- 
self and of other parts of it, and of his relation to them, he has 
abundant proof that God delights in good. The sun, which 



THE KELIGION OF REASON. .IS 

lights and warms liim, and the fruitful earth, which feeds and 
clothes him, are proofs of it. The returning seasons not only 
prove there is a God, but that He is a loving father. So full of 
His goodness are they that one of the poets calls them God. 
Though not a Pantheist, I nevertheless can forgive the Panthe- 
istic personification into which this sweet poet is carried when 
he says of the seasons : 

"These as tliey change, Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of Thee." 

I referred to the constitution of man for proof of the Divine 
goodness. How happy is he in obeying and how miserable in 
violating the laws of his own being! Should he not, then, 
allow himself to be convinced by these laws that his Maker is 
his friend and father ? — the designer of good and not evil ? — 
and that "Love" is among the fittest of all the names given to 
him? 

And what is there throughout the realms of physical and 
moral government to raise so much as one doubt of the Divine 
attributes ? In connecting peace with righteousness, and in or- 
daining the outflow of happiness from virtue, and misery from 
vice, has He not shown that love of the right and the pure, that 
benevolence and goodness are elements in His character ? But 
death is in the world, is the reply ; and such an evil and such 
a curse is it in the esteem of the theologians that they insist we 
need to go outside of nature and to other revelations for proof 
that God governs in justice and love. It is not true, however, 
that death is a curse ; nor that it is so much as a calamity. 
That it is a penalty is purely a theological fiction. Were the 
laws of life and health properly observed, the common age of 
man reaching probably to a hundred years, would give ample 
time for making trial and reaping the enjoyments of this state 
of being. He would then feel death to be seasonable. Abund- 
antly welcome would it be if he had observed the moral laws 
also — it being in his power to learn these as well as the physical, 
by studying the creation and providence of God. Abundantly 
welcome, I say — for then his holy, happy life would aiford him 
the conscious preparation for a succeeding stage of existence. 
I add that death is necessary to make room for countless mil- 
lions of human beinpjs who otherwise could have no existence ; 



46 THE RELIGION" OF REASON. 

and tliat tliiis it is to be credited with swelling indefinitely the 
sum total of human happiness. Again, while a perpetual earth- 
ly existence would be the foregoing of another and probably 
higher life, it would also be characterized by far less enjoyment, 
dignity, and usefulness, than is a limited earthly existence. 
Human nature is slow to be improved after its habits are 
formed and fixed. The commonest illustration of this is that 
the physicians over forty years of age rejected the discovery of 
the true theory of the circulation of the blood. Had the earth, 
instead of being peopled with a succession of young, and, be- 
cause young, free spirits, been the abode of men who never die, 
hoary errors would have successfully conspired against all pro- 
gress, had there, indeed, been any to conspire against. Of all 
the inventions which cluster upon our day, probably not one 
would have been known in the whole range, from the lucifer- 
match which supplies the place of carrying fire in a skillet, to 
the telegraph which does in a minute what live-forever men 
could hardly have begun in a month. Indeed, death seems to 
be as indispensable a provision of nature for improving the con 
dition and character of man, as it does to prepare the way for 
new and improved races of animals. Why is it unreasonable 
to believe that the races of men millions of years hence will 
surpass what they are now, quite as much as the most finely or- 
ganized and the most beautiful specimens of animals in this age 
of the earth surpass the trilobites and other fauna of the Silurian 
period ? Surely while we see death to be so great a blessing, 
we are not to argue from it that Grod is not good ; but we are 
rather to exalt ourselves to such a comprehension of it, that we 
shall see it to be among the most needed provisions for man, 
and therefore among the highest evidences of the Divine good- 
ness. Is it said that great changes in the earth rendered it an 
impossible abode for those races of animals which have disap- 
peared ? Let us not forget that probably as great changes are 
stiU going on, and that probably they are continually calling 
for and continually contributing to corresponding changes in 
man as well as in animals. 

It is a sound rule in logic to begin with the known and pro- 
ceed to the unknown ; to begin with what is self-evident and 
proceed to what requires proof. As such was my beginning, so 
I am now at liberty to advance to a proposition which requires 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 47 

a little defense. It is perhaps, however, only a little explana- 
tion that it requires. The proposition is that nature teaches 
there is a strong resemblance between God and man. They are 
*' workers together." The grand Creator- worker and the little 
creature- worker are suited to each other. Man supplies what 
is lacking at the hand of God. He takes up nature from her 
Author, and develops her into new forms of embellishment, 
and results of higher usefalness. The work of each in the de- 
partment of flowers shows that each has a taste for beauty and 
ornament. The work of each in the department of food for 
man and beast shows that each is provident and beneficent. 
The part that each has in feeding the hungry, and clothing the 
naked, proves that both are pitiful and benevolent. The moun- 
tain which the one and the pyramid which the other builds 
prove that both enjoy the sublime, and that both work for the 



We have said enough to justify our inferring of the moral 
nature of God from that of man. We deduce the former from 
our knowledge of the latter. We know that man's moral na- 
ture is good, and therefore that God's is. Man is loving and 
merciful, and appreciates truth and equity. Goodness is natural 
to him. In the narration of Paul's shipwrecked company of 
two hundred and seventy-six persons it is said : " And the bar- 
barous people showed us no little kindness : for they kindled a 
fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain and 
because of the cold." It is true that this people might have 
murdered eve7-y one. But they would have done it under some 
misapprehension springing up in their barbarous ignorance, and 
contrary to that underlying humanity which called on them to 
save and comfort every one of their helpless guests. 

The most barbarous people on earth, could they hear the 
story of the Good Samaritan, would honor him and condemn 
the Priest and Levite. Even such a people would applaud the 
golden rule, and would also acknowledge truth to be right and 
lying to be wrong. I do not forget that such crimes as burning 
the widow and casting the infant into the river are often cited 
to prove that human nature is blind, and bad, and base. These, 
however, are crimes not of, but against, human nature. They 
express its perversions, not itself The religions of the world 
are mainly responsible for this class of crimes. It is these re- 



48 THE EELIGIOISr OF REASON. 

ligions tliat have in all lands and ages outraged human nature, 
ignored it, and created monsters to take its place and wear its 
name. Most of the great crimes (Slavery included) which have 
disgraced and crushed mankind, have been committed either 
avowedly in the name of religion, or directly or indirectly un- 
der its promptings ; and scarcely ever without the plea of its 
sanction. 

Let, then, the theologians continue to insist on the badness, 
baseness, and blindness of human nature ; we nevertheless will 
continue to repose faith in its moral perceptions and in its dis- 
cernment and appreciation of truth, justice, and mercy. "We 
nevertheless will continue to draw from his resemblances to 
man some of our strongest arguments for attributing a just, for- 
giving, and loving spirit to God. 

Most persons will recoil from the inference of God's goodness 
from man's. Their eye is on the masses of men. But the 
masses are only the ruins of men — though even in these ruins, 
noble and beautiful characteristics of human nature can still be 
discovered. Human nature can not be so successfully judged of 
in the light of those who trample upon a§ of those who obey its 
laws. We should judge of it by good men. Nay, we should 
come at once to Jesus, and judge of it by him : for he is its best 
specimen, since he was perfectly obedient to all the laws of his 
being. When we say that the Divine nature is like human na- 
ture, we do indeed mean that God resembles even the common 
and unfavorable specimens of man, though of course much less 
than He does the best. But when Jesus, the model man, is in 
our eye, then do we say with an em^phasis that God is like man. 

Another argument to sustain the conclusion that God is like 
man is, that it can not, without the greatest violence to all prob- 
ability, be supposed that He would create His intelligent be- 
ings with a moral nature contrary to His own. Were His na- 
ture malignant so would be theirs. But we see them to be' on 
the side of justice and goodness, and so therefore is He. 

IsTow, if human nature, wherever its voice can be heard be- 
neath the immeasurable wrongs and outrages which are every 
where heaped upon it, and are every where at work to suppress 
that voice, does still, in spite of those wrongs and outrages, 
witness for truth and justice and love and mercy, then, surely 
these qualities must all be found in the Author of human na- 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 49 

ture. Moreover, they must be perfect in Him, in order to cor- 
respond with, the perfect wisdom, skill, and contrivance mani- 
fested in His works. The attributes of Deity, if bad; must be 
entirely bad ; if good, entirely good. 

When, then, we are told that God could not forgive sin until 
His angry spirit had been appeased and His laws satisfied by 
the sufferings of an innocent person, we reply that this view of 
Him and of His spirit and laws is forbidden, not only by what 
we learn of Him and them directly from His outward and visi- 
ble creations, but also from those clearly warrantable inferences 
of His moral nature which we draw from that of man. His 
character, as viewed from these indubitable sources, assures us 
that He is ever ready to forgive every repentant offender. Je- 
sus was assured of it, else he would not have taught it in the 
parable of the prodigal son. But Jesus goes much further. 
His words on the cross imply a belief that his Father is ready 
to forgive the impenitent also, provided that ignorance be cou- 
pled with their impenitence. But even men are good enough 
to do all this. Much more then is God. '' If ye, then, being 
evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more your Fa- 
ther?" 

But it is said that nature and the history of man abound in an- 
alogies to the Atonement. I can not admit that any such analo- 
gies are to be found in either. It is true that ofttimes the guilt" 
less suffer for the guilty — now of necessity, and now of choice. 
But in no case is there a transference of character frgm one to 
the other. The guilty party remains no less gnilty, and the 
guiltless party contracts no guilt literal or constructive. Ke- 
member, too, that the human sense of justice revolts at visiting 
upon the good man the penalty due to the bad man — a strong 
argument, by the way, that the Divine sense does also. 

When, too, we are told that God has prepared an eternal hell 
— a place of endless and inconceivably exquisite tortures — for a 
large share of his children, we are sure that this shocking pic- 
ture finds no counterpart and no warrant in creation and Prov- 
idence. These tell us of a father and not of a fiend ; of love, 
and not of hatred ; of forgiveness, and not of revenge. These 
tell us that in all ages God has made '' his sun to rise on the 
evil and on the good," and has sent his "rain on the just and 
on the unjust ;" and these bid us hope that in other worlds, as 
4 



60 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

well as in this, He will still be the father and the friend of men. 
Again, if men are miserable here, it is not of His infliction, but 
because thej make themselves so ; yes, and make themselves 
so in the midst of the numberless and sufficient means He has 
provided for making themselves happy. If, in this world, men 
persevere in ruining themselves, it is in the face of His perse- 
verance to save them. And why should it be otherwise in 
other worlds ? From nothing we see of God is He changeable. 
We are bound to believe that He is as ready to afford His chil- 
dren opportunities in one stage of being as well as in another, 
for the improvement of their character ; and that He is ever in- 
tent, as much so in one world as in another, to do them good 
and not evil. And why should we doubt that God is as 
forgiving in another life as in this ? Would Jesus have told 
us to set no limits to the times of forgiving our brother, had he 
believed that the exercise of God's forgiving spirit is confined 
to this first brief stage of human existence ? Would he have 
told us to be so much better than he believed God to be ? 

Eternal hell ! Then must sin be an eternally -disturbing force 
in the universe. For manifestly when sin shall have ceased, 
punishment will also. 

Eternal hell 1 Yes, and it is to be suffered by men of the 
loveliest character, provided they were not able to subscribe in 
this life to certain ecclesiastical interpretations of a book. 

Putting people into an eternal hell ! Why, the worst of men 
would not thus serve their worst enemies. How much less 
would God ! Orthodoxy makes God infinitely more malignant 
and cruel than are the most malignant and cruel men. 

Eternal hell ! No man does and no man can believe it. It 
is untrue if only because human nature is incapable of believing 
it. Moreover, were such a belief possible it would be fatal. 
Let the American people wake up with it to-morrow, and none 
of them would go to their fields, and none to their shops, and none 
would care for their homes. All interest in the things of earth 
would be dead. The whole nation would be struck with pa- 
ralysis, and frozen with horror. Even the beginnings of such a 
belief are too much for the safety of the brain ; and every step 
in that direction is a step toward the madhouse. The orthodox 
preacher of an eternal hell would himself go crazy did he be- 
lieve his own preaching. Did he see his wife, or children, or 



THE RELIGION OF REASON". 61 

friends, or neighbors, in danger of falling into it, he would be 
overpowered by the sight. He saves his sanity only through 
his insincerity. To be sincere in his preaching he must first be 
insane. 

The little* inflaence of their religion on its professors is often 
wondered at. But why should it be ? They do not believe 
their religion, and they can not, so long as an eternal hell is a 
part of it. Since their belief of this part is at the most but a 
dreamy and fancied one, there can hardly be a real, earnest and 
deeply-influential belief of any part. Their conscious or uncon- 
scious distrust of the truth of this part necessarily begets a sim- 
ilar distrust of the truth of every part. The enormous draught 
at this point upon their staggering faith can not fail to cast in 
their view an air of unreality over the whole of their religion. 
Herein is the explanation of the fact that, while an ignorant 
church is little better than a mass of superstition, a more en- 
lightened one is little better than a mass of infidelity and hy- 
pocrisy. The members of the latter, required to believe in 
more than their credulity can swallow, do truly and deeply be- 
lieve in nothing ; and thus are they infidels. Moreover, they 
are very great hypocrites, since they stoutly profess to believe 
it all. Doubtless, one of their motives for this boundless pro- 
fession of faith is to supply their conscious lack of it. They 
are something like Mrs. Stowe's Candace, who, to atone for her 
pa,st lack of faith in the celebrated Bible apple, was now ready 
to eat apple, tree, and all. 

We are wont to lament the prevailing want of religious ear- 
nestness. But should we not rather rejoice in it, seeing how 
monstrous are the religions ? With what a good stomach we 
should hate, and crush, and kill one another, if we really be- 
lieved that we are such devils as our religions picture us to be ! 
Once persuade me that God is waiting to roast my neighbor, 
and the way is made easier for persuading me that I shall do 
God service by hurrying that neighbor with a dagger or bullet 
into the prepared fire. 

But it is held that these things, which are so at war with Na- 
ture and Providence, are affirmed by the Bible. I do not admit 
that they are. Certainly they are not by the Bible as a whole. 
But even if they were, that would not prove them to be true. 
It would only prove that, so far, the Bible is false. Whether 



62 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

these tilings are true or false, is a question to be referred not to 
tlie umpirage of a book, but to the infinitely higher one of Na- 
ture and Providence. 

But is not the Bible the word of God? It is no further such 
than it corresponds with the manifestations of God. It is to be 
judged by Nature and Providence. Formerly, men in their 
folly made the Bible paramount to Nature and Providence, as 
even now does the splendid Baptist writer of New- York who 
calls geology and astronomy "inferior truth." They went to 
it to study the motions of the heavenly bodies. But wise men 
went to astronomy. Even in our own day there are persons 
who go to the Bible for an understanding of earthly creations ; 
and even dear Hugh Miller himself thought it very important 
to save it from the reproach of ignorance in this respect. Wise 
men, however, go to geology, caring nothing at all of the havoc 
it may make of the traditions and allegories of Genesis. Folly, 
sheer folly, seeks to mould the mountains, and deposit the rocks 
and account for the waters in harmony with those traditions 
and allegories. But wisdom lets the mountains, rocks and wa- 
ters, speak for themselves, let what will gainsay them. So, too, 
it is held that the Bible, and the Bible alone, explains the 
moral government of the world. Most religionists, very fool- 
ishly turning their backs upon the sure light that Creation and 
Providence shed upon this subject, as foolishly acknowledge 
the words of a book to be conclusive upon it. Alas ! that men 
should fancy that they do in this wise honor the revealed God ! 
They deeply dishonor Him. For the revelations of a book, to 
which they confine themselves, are as small as they are uncer- 
tam, compared with "the abundance of the revelations" in na- 
ture. 

But is not the Bible inspired ? The spirit of much of it 
comes, I admit, from the heavenly fount. Yery common earth- 
ly sources, however, would be adequate to supply most of the 
remainder. No other pages are so full of the Divine presence 
and power as are a part of its pages. But there are pages of 
the Bible which might have been written by entire strangers to 
that presence and power. 

Is not, however, the Bible infallible ? No person but God is 
infallible ; and no thing but nature. Nature is the infallible 
wftness for the infallible God. Precious source of enlighten- 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 53 

ment is the Bible. But in tlie liglit of nature only, (I need not 
add providence, since tlaat is a part of or essentially connected 
with nature,) can the true religion be surely learned. The 
Bible is the work of man, and hence even its best pages must 
bear the marks of human imperfection. But the volume of 
nature is written by the finger of God, and is, therefore, as free 
from error as Himself. What, however, is the Bible, or rather 
a Bible, that we are bound to adopt the whole of it unquestion- 
ingly, and to worship it, and to insist that there is not in the 
whole of it one unsound' doctrine, nor one false sentiment ? I 
wish all the clergy would tell their hearers that it is simply a 
selection from ancient writings — a selection, too, made by per- 
sons who no one claims were inspired. Such outspoken honesty 
would serve to overthrow a great deal of superstition, and to 
dispel a great deal of delusion. Millions, on hearing this news, 
would look upon the Bible with new eyes. Then, for the first 
time, they would have courage to exercise (but oh ! with what 
trembling !) their reason upon it, and to judge of its merits for 
themselves. Then, for the first time, the soul- darkening, soul- 
shriveling, and soul-enslaving religion of authority, would be- 
gin to give place in them to the soul-enlightening, soul-expand- 
ing, and soul-freeing religion of reason. 

The clergy should also frankly tell their hearers that they who 
undertook to make up a Bible differed widely among them- 
selves in respect to what should go to make it up. They should 
tell them how some voted to receive and others to reject this, 
that, and the other of these ancient writings. Kor should they 
forget to add, that the Catholics hold that the Protestant Bible 
does not take in near as many of those ancient writings as it 
should ; and that the Protestants hold that the Catholic Bible 
takes in far more than it should. 

Perhaps both the Catholic and Protestant Bibles take in too 
many of these writings : perhaps too few. "Were I to make up 
a Bible for myself, it might differ much from both. It might 
be inferior, possibly it might be superior to both. But, how- 
ever this may be, my assumption of the right to force it upon 
the conscience of others would be no more arrogant and non- 
sensical than is the like assumption in behalf of the existing 
Bibles. Every man is in an important sense bound to make up 
a Bible for himself. But while this is required by the religion 



64 THE EELIGIOK OF REASON-. 

of reason, tlie religion of authority claims tliat its patent right 
from heaven to make Bibles excludes every other right to make 
them. 

I refused to admit that the Bible, especially as a whole, jus- 
tifies the popular or orthodox view, either of the Atonement 
or of fature punishment. An eternal hell finds no countenance 
in the Old Testament, and is opposed to the general tenor of the 
New. There are a few words in the latter which favor the in- 
stitution. I say institution — for if Slavery may be dignified 
with this name, it is peculiarly proper that every other hell 
should be. Such of these few words as are attributed to Jesus 
(and most of them are) would be entitled to our most profound 
and earnest consideration, could we be sure that he uttered 
them. But even if we could be, we should be more or less un- 
certain to what they refer. Moreover, as they are used in con- 
nection with his highly figurative and surpassingly hyperbolical 
language, we should be apprehensive that to put a literal inter- 
pretation upon them might be to sacrifice their significance. 
Manifestly, then, these few words constitute a basis quite too 
narrow and uncertain on which to build an argument for an 
eternal hell — an argument leading to the most important and 
appalling of all conclusions. 

In every age, thousands of the learned spend no little time 
in concentrating the whole power of their minds, and the whole 
interest of their hearts, upon inquiries into the meaning of an 
adjective which Jesus is reported to have coupled with the word 
" punishment." Upon that meaning they make turn the future 
and eternal condition of man. What matchless folly to go to 
an adjective, instead of God, with a question of such overwhelm- 
ing importance ! Nay, what insanity to be thus driving an ex- 
clusive search into a word, for the purpose of learning the very 
little of the Divine will which can be learned from a mere word, 
while all the while the heavens above our heads, and the earth 
beneath our feet, are teeming with unmistakable and conclusive 
evidences of that will ! Oh ! when will men " turn from these 
vanities unto the living God, who made heaven and earth and 
the sea, and all things that are therein ; and left not himself 
without witness in that He did good, and gave us rain from 
heaven, and fruitfal seasons, filling our hearts with food and 
gladness I" 



THE RELiaiON OF REASON. 66 

To return for a moment to this undnly-magnified adjective. 
Is it properly translated into '' everlasting ?" That is uncertain. 
Uncertain, too, is it whether it was spoken in Hebrew, Sjriac, 
or Greek. For scholars can no more decide in what language 
it was spoken than in what language the Book of Matthew was 
first written. N"ow, if the idea which Jesus conveyed in this 
word, and in its original connections, has indeed gone the round 
of all these languages, then it would not be strange if, by the 
time it reached our language, it had become a greatly changed 
idea. 

Nor can it be properly said that the popular or orthodox 
view of the Atonement is sustained by the Bible. The few 
passages for it are inconsistent with the general tenor of the 
book. 

The Jews were waiting for the Messiah. He came. The 
mass did not own Mm ; and the few who did were sadly disap- 
pointed and utterly confounded by his death. They " thought 
it had been he who should have restored Israel." But in pro- 
cess of time happy turns were given to his deaths whereby the 
believing Jews were lifted up out of the despair into which that 
death had sunk them. One of these turns, as honest, I admit, 
as it was natural, was the Atonement. The sacrifice of animals 
for the remission of sins was deeply rooted in the Jewish faith. 
A very easy step, therefore, was it to a fanciful analogy between 
such sacrifice and the death of Christ, and still easier was the 
succeeding step which transmuted the fiction into an indubit- 
able fact. The early Gentile converts were probably but little 
interested in the Atonement. ISTot being prepared for it by a 
Jewish education, they would be slow to receive it. To them 
Paul says very little of it. The sacrifices of the Greeks and 
Eomans difiered widely from those of the Jews. 

I admit that the Atonement is, in the esteem of the majority 
of Christians, the great central doctrine of Christianity — the 
great saving doctrine, inasmuch as they hold that every man 
denying it must perish, and that Christianity itself would perish 
without it. But if the faith of the earliest Christians is appeal- 
ed to for determining its relative importance, then will but little 
account be made of the doctrine. Jesus did not teach it, nor 
was it taught lintil many years after his death. It would not 
be held to at this day, had not Paul taught it. Paul would not 



66 THE EELIGION OF REASON. 

have taught it, had he not been a Jew. The Jews would not 
have received it but for their faith in animal sacrifices ; and 
from this faith they would have been free, had they entirely 
outgrown paganism. It was because of their pagan conceptions 
of Deity that they numbered damnation and destruction among 
His intensest delights. It was because of the lingerings of pa- 
ganism in them, that they attributed to Him a burning wrath 
which blood and suffering could alone appease. 

No, the Atonement was not the preeminent doctrine with the 
early Christians. The Eesurrection held that place. This was 
the "hope" for which Paul was judged — the "hope that there 
shall be a resurrection of the dead." He taught that their 
preaching and faith were vain if there be no resurrection. 

I have mentioned one of the happy turns given to the death 
of Christ. Another and no less honest one was that which 
made his death lead to a triumphant argument for the resurrec- 
tion. If Christ had risen, then there would be a rising of all, 
" both of the just and the unjust." His resurrection was 
held to be the earnest — the " first fruits" of the general resur- 
rection. 

With the believing Jews, the Messiah's reign — a visible and 
literal reign — was second in importance to the resurrection only. 
They were sure of it. So, too, was Jesus. The difference be- 
tween himself and them on this point was, that they believed 
he would set up his kingdom then, and he that he must first 
pass through the gates of death. Soon after his death, how- 
ever, they believed that he had risen, and the effect of this be- 
lief was to renew their confidence in his kingdom. Confident 
were they that he would soon return to "reign in righteous- 
ness." Full of this confidence was Paul. He doubted not that 
"the end of the world has come ;" though he did not think it 
to be quite as near as the Thessalonians did. Peter doubted 
not that "the end of all things is at hand." So, too, James, 
" that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." And John adds : 
" We know it is the last time." But Christ did himself assign 
a very early date to his return. Matt. 16 : 28 ; 24 : 84; Mark 
9:1; Luke 21 : 32. 

It surely should not be allowed to deduct any thing from our 
estimate of the value of Christ, nor from our lave of him and 
interest in him, that in this and that instance the Father has 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 67 

disclosed the " day and hour not to the angels which are in 
heaven, neither the Son." I know how common is the remark 
that Christ can not be loved by those, and can be of no avail to 
those, who do not see him to be at all points one with his Fa- 
ther. But the remark is as foolish as it is common. That he 
is one with his Father in spirit and character makes him all we 
need of him ; and it should produce in us no sorrowful disap- 
pointment and no sense of loss to know that in the end " shall 
the Son also himself be subject unto Him, that God may be all 
in all." Alas ! that men should waste their time and zeal upon 
these speculative and profitless questions about Christ. To 
every one thus unwisely employed does he say as he did to the 
impertinent Peter: "What is that to thee? follow thou me." 
Suppose Christ did misapprehend some or even many of the 
things in the future. JSTo less bound are we to follow him, and 
grow in likeness to him. No less is he God's own spirit "man- 
ifest in the flesh." No less is he our teacher, pattern. Saviour. 

Yes, Jesus believed not only that the Jewish nation would 
within a few years be overwhelmed and scattered, but that 
" then" would his kingdom be set up, and " with power and 
great glory. The temple, Jerusalem, and Judea, did all meet 
their flxte before the generation to which Jesus spoke had pass- 
ed away. But his kingdom has not yet been set up, nor have 
the signs appeared which were to precede it. 

By the way, is not the scene described in Matt. 25 : 81 to 
46, substantially identical with that described in Matt. 24 
and Luke 21, and therefore was it not to be enacted within a 
few years from the day in which Christ pictured it before his 
hearers ? In other words, is that scene, instead of being, as is 
held, the final judgment of all the living and dead, any thing 
more than a merely Jewish scene ? In Matt. 24 and Luke 
21, we have the foretelling of the ruin of the Jewish nation 
and the setting up of the Messiah's kingdom. In Matt. 25, 
are we not informed of the reward of those Jews who welcom- 
ed the ministry of Christ, and of the punishment of those Jews 
who rejected it — especially of the reward of those who, during 
his expected brief disappearance from earth, should honor his 
disciples — even "the least" of them — and the punishment of 
those who, during that brief period, should neglect those dis- 
ciples — even " the least" of them ? It is true that the word is 



58 THE RELIGION OF REASON". 

translated "nations," but it is also true tliat "nations" is not 
among its primary meanings, and that "multitudes," "compa- 
nies," " tribes" are. In the light of Matt. 19 : 28, do we not see 
some evidence that " tribes" would be a proper translation, and 
that the judgment in view was not to be of "all nations," but 
only of all the Jewish tribes ? 

I readily admit that this passage in Matt. 25 would not, 
if standing alone, easily bear this unusual interpretation. But 
must it not be looked at in connection with Matt. 16, and Mark 
9, and Luke 21, etc., and interpreted in the light of these Scrip- 
tures as well as in the light of its own language ? Moreover, 
we must remember both how exceedingly figurative is the lan- 
guage in Matt. 25, and how improbable it is that it is reported 
with entire correctness. I confess that owing to the fact that a 
simultaneous judgment of all the living and all the dead is a 
puzzle to common-sense, I am liable to give force to what are 
but feeble and, indeed, but seeming objections to the common 
interpretation of the scene in Matt. 25. 

But however this sublime scene should be interpreted, our 
duty to identify ourselves with the cause of Christ, and to walk 
in his steps, remains the same. Admit we must that every ex- 
planation of it is beset with difficulties. Nevertheless, we repeat 
that Jesus remains the same model of moral character by which 
every one is bound to fashion his own, and the same personifica- 
tion of love and holiness which every one should aspire to 
become. 

Far from inexplicable is it that so many stickle for the 
divinity and atonement of Christ and other metaphysical doc- 
trines coupled with His name, while so few are found who are 
intent on breathing His spirit and copying His life. Self- 
complacent logic suflices for the former ; but to accomplish the 
latter there must be the self-denying and cross-bearing cultiva- 
tion of character. The bare profession of Christ meets the 
whole demand in the one case. But character' — even the 
character of Christ — is called for at every step in the other. In 
the light of this distinction, we see how it is that, while Christ- 
ians are so very scarce, sectarians are so very plenty. Difficult 
it is to follow Christ ; but easy to be swayed by a party zeal for 
this or that denomination. Difficult it is to perform duties ; but 
easy to prate about doctrines. 



THE KELIGION OF EEASON. 59 

I am reminded in tliis connection of tlie denial of Cliristian 
character to all who disbelieve or doubt any of the miracles in 
the history of Christ. But the denial is as unjust as it is com- 
mon, since it turns not at all upon, and does not at all involve, 
our moral character whether we do or do not give credit to 
miracles. Men may be either good or bad, and give such credit ; 
either good or bad, and withhold it. A scholar in this day, 
however devout, would be very like to withhold it ; for, aware 
as he is that all nations abound in traditions of miracles, and 
agreeing with the intelligent that all others are false, he quite 
naturally calls in question the truth of the Christian miracles 
also. He doubts even the miraculous conception of Jesus. For 
in his extensive reading he has found the instances, very com- 
mon all along down the track of the world's history, in which 
a supernatural origin is attributed to its heroes and philosophers. 
It would not be strange if, remembering that Plato was believed 
to be the offspring of a god and a virgin, and if, remembering, 
too, that it was also believed that the man who subsequently 
became her husband was told, in a dream, by the god not to 
marry her until her divine child was born — I say, it would not 
be strange if he should suspect that the account of the origin 
of Jesus is but a substantial repetition of this fable about Plato. 
The scholar might be all wrong in this suspicion. Nevertheless, 
he would not necessarily be a sinner for it. 

To be frank, I suppose that all enlightened and broad-minded 
men do at least doubt the truth of miracles. They have never 
seen any, and hence they are slow to yield to even abounding 
testimony in their behalf. Had they ever seen so much as one 
miracle, they could easily be brought to believe in others, on 
the same principle that, having seen one city, men can be per- 
suaded of the existence of others. Moreover, it is especially 
difficult for him to believe in the Christian miracles who reflects 
that Christianity has done more than all things else to dispel 
belief in miracles. He would naturally expect that a religion 
of such an effect would keep itself clear of miracles. By the 
way, this effect of Christianity is among the arguments for 
regarding it as a natural rather than a supernatural religion. 

I was speaking of Christ's misapprehensions of the future, 
when I was drawn off upon an incidental subject. May I not 
add to what I said of these misapprehensions, that He became, 



60 THE EELIGION OF EEASON. 

on His ascension, immeasurably more than perliaps He himself 
expected to be ? He lived and died the Messiah of the Jews ; 
and not only did He believe, in common with His disciples, 
that He would return to earth, but it is somewhat probable that 
He also believed that He would return to earth in no wider 
capacity than that in which He left it. Unbounded and ever- 
lasting thanks to God, His Messiahship and nationality fell off 
at the grave, and He arose the Saviour of Mankind ! His life, 
and death, and words, and spirit, are not the monopoly of one 
nation, but the common property of all. They are not for the 
salvation and glory of the Jew only, but of all, wheth-er Jew 
or Gentile, who are willing to be saved and glorified by them. 

It is time, however, we had returned from this long digression, 
in which, while we have vindicated the Bible, we have, never- 
theless, admitted that nature is the only authoritative instructor 
in our study of the chariicter of God. Before making this 
disgression, we had said enough to prove what, in the light of 
this instructor, is that character. We saw God to be just and 
good; and hence it is entirely plain to reason that justice and 
goodness are the spirit of the true religion. For, as was said in 
the beginning of our discourse, the true religion must be like the 
true God. Another thing no less plain to reason is, that if the 
religion in our hearts is the true one, it will be found to recog- 
nize and honor and harmonize with the several kinds of intel- 
ligent beings with which it has to do. "While toward God and 
men and angels (provided it has to do with angels also) it is always 
the same spirit of justice and goodness, it nevertheless adapts 
itself to the different demands of the three different natures. 

The Psalmist says : " My goodness extendeth not to Thee." 
There is a sense in which this is emphatically true. Neverthe- 
less the love, gratitude, adoration, prayer due to God are ex- 
pressions of the goodness as well as of the justice which enter 
into the spirit of the true religion. In other words, there are 
services of religion which are Godward — being called out by 
his nature, and adapted to it. 

Excuse me for making another disgression. Just here I must 
defend prayer — the duty of the exercise being strongly doubted 
in some quarters, and even totally denied in others. It is ap- 
prehended by some, and fully believed by others, that prayer 
overlooks and interferes with the general laws of the universe. 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 61 

Men must liave become persuaded of the truth of the doctrine 
of Divine influence before they will become men of prayer. 
The influence of a great and good man pervades his town, his 
county, and, may be, his whole State. Why, then, may not 
God's influence pervade His universe ? But skepticism knows 
the means by which man's influence is diffused, and not those by 
which God's is. And shall it, therefore, deny that those exist, 
and deny, too, that the influence itself exists ? 

The doctrine of Divine influence admitted, and there are 
prayers which all will see'to be reasonable ; such as are in effect 
prayers for the opening of the mind to that influence. Do I 
pray for an increase of my physical or spiritual health ? If I 
pray intelligently, it is not that God may increase it, but that 
He may influence me to increase it by my improvement of the 
means to that end placed by His providence within my reach. 
In other words, it is asking Him to dispose me to answer my 
own prayers ; and surely this is not ignoring any general laws 
with which we are acquainted ; nor is it asking Him to come 
into conflict with them. 

Widely different, I admit, would be the case were I praying 
for sunshine or rain. That would be praying that a work may 
be done not by myself but by God — and a work involving, it 
might be, an arrest of some of His general laws. ISTevertheless, 
I do not say that there are no possible circumstances in which a 
people are to feel at liberty to pray for what involves such 
arrest. When threatened with famine by drouth or rain, or 
with some other great calamity, they, perhaps, ought so to pray, 
and not to confine themselves to prayer for resignation. For 
we do not know but, in so praying, they would keep themselves 
in harmony with a law as old and fixed and eternal as the gen- 
eral laws referred to. A law there may be which shall provide 
that even these general laws shall give way in certain circum- 
stances — as for instance, before the prayers of a suffering people, 
who shall have greatly honored themselves and their God, by 
attaining a certain posture of soul. A law is not impossible, 
which, the conditions precedent being supplied, shall compel 
even the sun and moon to stand still, in answer to prayer. I 
confess that it is not for man to limit the Divine possibilities, 
nor to essay to number and comprehend all the laws of the uni- 
verse. 



62 THE EELIGION OF EEASON". 

Are my suppositions at war witli tlie uncTiangeableness of tlie 
general laws? They are not. The provision from eternity, 
that a possible or given conjuncture shall serve to arrest one of 
these laws, is from eternity a part of that law : and the actual 
conjuncture does not change the law. 

We can not guard too carefully against all undue limitation 
of the ef&ciency of prayer, and all undue diminution of the 
motives to engage in it. Let us, who believe -that the religion 
of reason calls for the religion of nature, remember that the flow 
of prayer is as natural as the flow of water. The prayerless 
man has become an unnatural man. Jesus " continued all night 
in prayer to Grod :" and he was the wisest and best of men, be- 
cause the most natural of men — because the truest to his nature. 

I will say nothing here of "special providences," except that 
if they do occur they must be the result of the unchangeable 
and eternal laws of the unchangeable and eternal God. 

A few words more in regard to these general laws. There is 
a view of them which multiplies infidels with a fearful rapidity. 
It is that view which puts them in the place of a personal God, by 
representing Him as having set them in motion, and then turning 
his back upon them. But these laws are not God. They are 
only the modes by which He works, and they have no power 
only as He constantly energizes them, and no existence only as 
He constantly breathes his own into them. 

To return again to the line of argument in this discourse — 
I was speaking of the true religion as a spirit of justice and good- 
ness, and also of its proper service toward God. I now pass on 
to speak of its proper and more important service toward man. 
More important I say, since its truest service toward man is also 
its truest service toward God. More important, too, since only 
a small part of our time should be consumed with direct duties to 
God, and nearly all of it with direct duties to man. Paul says 
that "a?? the law is fulfilled " in our duties to man. 

Alas ! how wanting in the characteristics of the true religion 
have the prevailing rehgions of the world always proved them- 
selves to be by their unhappy bearing on human nature ! Con- 
clusive witnesses of this are those deep wrongs done to man ever 
and every where ; that contemptuous disregard of his rights ; 
that heartless indifference to the essential wants and urgent de- 
mands of his high and sacred nature. What overwhelming tes- 



THE KELIGION OF REASON. 63 

timony against these religions have we in Polygamy, Land-mo- 
nopoly, War, Slavery, and the annihilation of the rights of Wo- 
man ! 

These crimes prevail because conventional and false religions 
prevail: and never shall we find relief from them and a remedy 
for the ruin they have wrought, until we shall find it in a reli- 
gion harmonizing with human nature, and growing out of it — • 
a religion, in short, which shall allow human nature to be a law 
unto itself and to be its own religion. That eminently profound 
observer, Madame de Stael, justly accords to the Christian phi- 
losojDhy the high honor of seeking to harmonize religion with 
human nature, {celle qui cherche Vanalogie de la religion avec la na- 
ture humain.) I add that we can never learn what is the true re- 
ligion except by studying the rights and wants of human nature. 

Hitherto religions altogether alien and revolting to human 
nature have been forced upon it — ^religions whose slanderous 
song is : 

" Nature must count her gold but dross, 
If she would gain the heavenly land ;" 

religions that have impudently and lyingly asserted their supe- 
riority to human nature, and that have thereby succeeded in 
bringing it under their tyrannical and crushing sway ; religions 
that under the plea of saving human nature, have gone about to 
kill it. Is this idea of having our nature be our law and our re- 
ligion, startling and offensive to you ? Goodness, I am aware, is 
well-nigh universally regarded as an external injunction upon, 
rather than a law of, our nature. But to be truly good and 
truly religious, is not to be in bondage to a foreign authority. 
It is, on the contrary, to enjoy the freedom of living out our own 
good nature and being ourselves. He who made us bids us be 
what He made us — bids us live out ourselves. 

I know that this doctrine of the goodness of human nature 
must shock some of my hearers — for they, and, indeed, nearly all 
of us, were trained up to believe in its total depravity. Would 
that men universally had faith in its goodness! Such faith 
would serve mightily to lift up their lives to the high level of 
their nature. On the other hand, their degrading submission to 
the doctrine of their total depravity goes very far toward ac- 
counting for their false morality, base spirit, and dwarfed man- 
hood. So long as they believe in this doctrine, they will be an 



64 THE KELIGION OF REASON. 

easy prey to the priesthood. For so long they will feel them- 
selves to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and 
compelled to go outside of themselves to supply the deficiency. 
This deficiency the priesthood stands ever ready to supply, 
either by means of its interpretation of books, or simply its own 
dicta. Hence men receive this as right, and reject that as 
wrong, not because they see them to be so, but because of their 
being told that they are so. Hence it is explained that many 
worthy people admit that even Slavery is right. Instantly 
would they condemn it were their moral sense allowed to pass 
upon it. But their moral sense, the theologians tell them, is so 
blunted and blinded by their total depravity as to make it 
necessary to supersede it by a revelation — by a book. It is by 
thus denying to men the ability, and therefore the right, to judge 
for themselves, even in the plainest of moral matters ; it is by 
thijs overriding them with authority, and reducing them to 
puppets, that they are so largely characterized by a sense of 
irresponsibility, by ignorance, weakness, superstition, cowardice. 
It is, in a word, by this means, that they are brought to live a 
life which is sunk so far below their nature. 

A natural religion is, as we have already substantially said, 
the only one for which reason calls. Men study books to learn 
religion. But while we readily admit that some books, and 
especially the precious Bible, (that most eloquent defender, next 
to Nature, of both Divine and human rights, as we joyfully see 
it to be when wielded by such a mighty man of God as 
Cheever,) are useful to this end, we must nevertheless insist 
that the study of nature is immeasurably more so. So far as 
the Yedas or Koran may be a record of the teachings of nature, 
or may be in harmony with those teachings, they are valuable : 
and only by the same rule is the value of the Bible to be 
judged. It is by means of books and their own imaginations 
that men conjure up these crazy religions that make such fright- 
ful and ruinous war on human nature — dwarfing and shriveling 
it with the terrors of their horrid hells, and debasing and be 
fooling it with their superstitious and puerile pictures of hea- 
ven. But only let reason be obeyed, and a natural religion be 
allowed to take the place of these artificial, fanciful, and insane 
religions, and the abuses of human nature will cease, and the 
deep wounds they have made upon it will be quickly healed, 



THE EELIGION OF REASON. 65 

its fair proportions be all recovered, and its union with the 
Divine nature be reestablished. 

I spoke of the mistake of studying religion in books rather 
than in nature. I remark, incidentally, that in this mistake is 
to be found the fruitful source of sectarianism. Were the nature- 
religion substituted for the book-religion, there could be no 
sect. ITearly all cultivated men read nature substantially alike, 
and so would all men but for the authority which they allow 
to certain books. Take away from the thousand Christian sects 
their temptation to quarrel about a few words in the Bible, and 
their occupation would be gone, and their death would be cer- 
tain. But this temptation will all disappear the moment they 
shall see that nature, and not a book, is authority in religion. 

It is our duty to be reformers. But reformers we shall not 
be unless we make ourselves aware and keep ourselves aware 
of the spuriousness of the popular religion. Frequent are the 
occasions which reveal that spuriousness : and it may be profit- 
able for us all if we bring into review at this time some of 
these revelations. 

The Governments of Massachu.setts and New- York were 
recently called on to provide protection for fugitive slaves. 
But they refused. Why did they ? Government in its true 
sense is simply the collective people, charged with the duty of 
protecting each one of the people. The plea for their refusal 
was, that Massachusetts and New- York are under a promise not 
to protect this class of persons. Admit that they are, (though 
every endeavor to show that they are must be in contempt and 
defiance of the canon of legal interpretation,) nevertheless, 
ought not the protection to have been afforded first, and the 
promise to have been considered afterward ? The duty of the 
protection could not be conditional on any thing. At all times, 
and in all circumstances, such a duty is imperative and absolute. 
Ought not Herod to have saved John first, and to have left to 
after consideration his promise involving the contrary ? More- 
over, could it have been' the true religion which would have led 
him, in such after consideration, to regTet. the breaking of a 
promise that called for murder? Certainly not. No more 
could it have been the true religion which would have brought 
the Legislatures in question to repent themselves of having 
broken a promise which called for a greater crime than murder. 
5 



(56 THE EELIGION OF EEASON". 

I say a greater — for to be guilty, directly or indirectly, of re- 
plunging a brother into the pit of Slavery is worse than to have 
a part in murdering him. We had all rather have our children 
murdered than enslaved. The Legislature or Court that dares 
insult human nature by entertaining the question whether man 
is merchandise is no better than a mob, and has no more rights 
than a mob. Nay, it is a mob; and a right-minded people 
would sustain their Executive in forcibly dispersing it. Were 
the people of Ohio inspired by the true religion, instead of be- 
ing debased by a false one, they would command their Governor 
to put an immediate stop to this trying of men in her Courts 
for not obeying a law for Slavery. There can be no law for 
what is itself not law ; and to know Slavery as law is an ofPense 
against human nature, unsurpassed, as well for its absurdity, as 
for its criminality. 

Let me not be understood as holding that every unwise pro- 
mise should be broken. If I have promised two dollars for a 
service which proves to be worth but one, I had, nevertheless, 
better pay the two dollars. If the people have in the Consti- 
tution promised to do foolish things, let them be done, provided 
the doing of them is insisted on. But whatever maybe said in 
regard to things merely foolish, there can be no obligation to do 
what is clearly wicked. Law is for righteousness. For wicked- 
ness there can be no law. 

In this great wickedness of the Legislatures of Massachusetts 
and New- York, the people of these States acquiesce. Doubt- 
less they stand ready to reelect those members who voted 
against the slaves, under the plea of their virtual promise to vote 
against them. Doubtless they do themselves feel the force of 
this plea. So far as they do, they prove that the religion of 
the people, as well as of the Legislatures of these States, is no 
better than that of the infamous Herod. Thus abominable is a 
conventional and book-religion. But in j/^hat beautiful con- 
trast to it stands the religion of nature ! — that reasonable re- 
ligion which treats all beings according to their natures — the 
man according to his, and the horse according to his ; not the 
man as if he were a horse, any more than the horse as if he 
were a man. Our slaveholding religion subjects a man to the 
discipline of a horse, and thus rivals the absurdity of the me- 
morable attempt in Rome to exalt a horse to the dignity of a 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. j67 

man. The religion of nature does not treat one man as a hog, 
and another as superhuman, but, recognizing the common na- 
ture of all men, be they white, red, or black, it brings them all 
Tinder a common treatment. Hence, the religion of nature can 
have no fellowship with slaveholding, nor with Massachusetts, 
New- York, nor any other State which gives the least counte- 
nance to slaveholding. For slaveholding lifts up the slave- 
holder above all the rights of human nature, and reduces the 
slave to a brute. Nor can it have fellowship with the selling 
of intoxicating drinks, since that fills the coffers of some men 
at the expense of sinking others below the brute. 

What an enemy instead of friend of the natural and only rea- 
sonable religion, must be the religion which is in full fellowship 
with these unnatural and enormous crimes 1 Base indeed must 
be the religion in which there is not virtue enough to shut up 
the dram-shop, and to afford shelter to the pursued slave. Base 
indeed must it- have made the people who elect Pro-slavery and 
dram-shop Legislatures. 

We pass on to other illustrations of the spuriousness of the 
prevailing religion. The American Tract Society justifies its 
wickedness, also, on the ground of its promise to be wicked. 
Quite recently it has again, under the plea of its virtual promise 
to withhold this part of the Gospel, excused itself for refusing 
"to preach deliverance" to the slaves. As if a promise, be it 
real or pretended, express or implied, to rob the most persecut- 
ed and peeled class of men of that God's testimony for the faith- 
fal promulgation of which they are in perishing need, could 
excuse the robbers ! And these superlatively guilty robbers 
carry on their robbery in the name and with the solemn air and 
long face of piety, and as if it were a plainly commanded and 
indispensable duty and service to Him who has said : " I the 
Lord love judgment : I hate robbery for burnt offering." 

Another recent illustration of the falseness of the current reli- 
gion is afforded in the almost universal sympathy with the mur- 
derer of Philip Barton Key. The secular press favored his ac- 
quittal. So did a portion of the religious press ; and, so far as 
I know, no portion of it contended for his conviction. But why 
should he have been acquitted ? Because, say his apologists, 
he was angry when he did the deed. What I the ruin of his 
wife beget in him the superficial and cheap emotion of anger I 



68 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

A base man, indeed, must he tlien be. A noble man in sach 
circumstances would be filled, aj, lie might be even killed, with 
grief. But the sorrow of his soul would be too deep, and would 
be too sacred and select, to express itself in the vulgar and 
brutal demonstrations of anger. 

We proceed to the most relied-on and popular excuse for the 
murder. It is that the adulterer deserves to die. But our law 
does not say so. The law of Moses does, is the reply ; and a 
great parade of it was made both in and out of the Court. So 
does Moses' law say that ''every one who curseth his father or 
his mother shall be surely put to death." So, too, does it say 
that to gather sticks on the Sabbath is an offense punishable 
with death. And what gross inconsistency and glaring hypoc- 
risy it is to hold up some of his laws as obligatory and to make 
no account of others ! Moses, however, did not mean that per- 
sons should be put to death for these offenses without having 
first had a trial. Moreover, his code was for an- ignorant and 
uncivilized people, and it is not for us. Christ is our lawgiver, 
and he confronts Moses the lawgiver. Christ, rather than have 
the adulterer suffer the unreasonable punishment of death, 
would say to him : " Go, and sin no more." 

Will the defenders of this murderer stand by their doctrine 
that, where the law does not provide a penalty private wrath 
should ? Then let them, as consistency and honesty require, 
look upon the slave, not the seduction only of whose wife and 
daughters, but the forcible subjection of them to lust, is among 
everyday actualities as well as possibilities. Let them, I say, 
look on him, and admit his duty to wreak the deep vengeance 
of his soul upon those who have trampled down his holy mari- 
tal and parental rights, as well as all the other rights of his 
manhood. 

Again, are the defenders of this doctrine and this murderer 
prepared to have the wife of the adulterer go forth to shoot the 
adulteress ? They are, if they are honest and consistent. And 
again, would they have the seduced rather than the seducer 
murdered ? Who knows that Key was not the seduced party ? 
Whatever justice at this point he might have been able to do 
his reputation, he was not permitted to do. For he was first 
murdered and then tried. 

Once more : Are these defenders willing that all persons who 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 69 

suspect, or, if you please, believe, that their conjugal partner is 
unfaithful, shall act, pistol in hand, upon the first impulses of 
their suspicions, or even upon their fully-matured beliefs ? For 
surely, if this action shall be allowed to any, it must be to all. 
But in ten thousand cases the mind in which such suspicions 
spring up or such beliefs are matured, would be so swayed by 
Ignorance, prejudice, and passion, as to be utterly incapable ol 
weighing evidence. What, however, if it shall be even a very 
wise and good man who shall suspect me of a crime ? — still, and 
even if it be a crime ever so worthy of death, I must insist on 
the right of being tried before I am killed. 

In this new order of things, whose life is safe ? ISTot mine ; 
not yours. Every where there are jealous persons silly or stupid 
enough to be persuaded, though without any reason, of attempts 
to debauch their wives, or daughters, or sisters. Hence, if this 
tendency in our country to let the jealous man be judge, jury 
and executioner in his own case, shall gain as much strength in 
a few years to come as . it has in the last few years, there will 
not be another country on earth where murder will be so fre- 
quent, and the life of an innocent person so insecure. If juries 
will help arrest the rapid progress of our nation to the lowest 
barbarism, they must promptly convict the class of murderers 
to which the murderer of Philip Barton Key belongs. As 
things are going, they had better let any other class of murder- 
ers escape. 

But would I not look to the husband to protect the wife from 
seduction? No — I would look to herself Her own virtues 
are her only legitimate earthly protectors from such a fate. All 
the aid I would require of a husband would be to live such a 
life before her as should minister strength to those virtues. 
How degrading to woman is this doctrine that blood must be 
shed in order to deter men from using her upon their lusts 1 
To what a low place in the scale of intelligent beings does it 
consign her ! 

But would I not have civil government prescribe a penalty 
for sexual intercourse out of wedlock ? Certainly I would. Its 
office, ay, its sole office, is to protect the great natural rights of 
man : and these are never more flagrantly invaded than by such 
intercourse. Let me here say that in no land is there civil gov- 
ernment. Emphatically true is this in respect to our own land. 



70 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

Its place liere is usurped bjr a bold and infamous conspiracy 
against human rights. God made every man to own himself. 
But tins conspiracy which we call Government, allows one man 
to own another. Again, our Government, like Governments 
in other lands, instead of protecting life and property, licenses 
the dram-shop — that immeasurably greatest manufactory of mad- 
men, murderers, and incendiaries. These are illustrative of the 
spuriousness of the religion which permits them. Another is to 
be found in land-monopoly. Government, here and elsewhere, 
allows one man to grasp fifty homes, and to leave thereby forty- 
nine men homeless. For, beside that we each need but one 
home, there is but one home for each of us. The defeat of the 
Grow-amended Land Bill in the last Congress shows that the 
protection of human rights, which is the great object of the true 
religion, is no object at all of the popular rehgion. 

Kow, it is on the very same principle on which Government 
should forbid land-monopoly that it should also forbid sexual 
intercourse out of wedlock. In other words, it should harmo- 
nize with nature and the religion of nature, and ordain that 
every man shall have but one wife, and every woman but one 
husband. But one, I repeat: for the census tables of all coun- 
tries show that the sexes are substantially equal in numbers. 
And with this great fact in nature the teaching of Jesus agrees, 
when he says, " God made them male and female ;" not ten 
women for one man, nor ten men for one woman ; but one for 
one. On this simple ground, that nature affords but one of one 
sex to one of the other, should Government punish polygamy ; 
that is, on the simple ground that for Government to allow a 
man to get two wives, or a woman to get two husbands, would 
be to allow them to rob their fellows of a great natural right — 
the right to a wife in the one case, and to a husband in the 
other. Herein, and herein only, do we see how to reach the 
solution of that great problem in Utah which so perplexes our 
statesmen — our poor statesmen who are as ignorant that all 
questions in the province of politics are to be solved solely in 
the light of the rights and wants of human nature, as are our 
poor theologians, that all questions in the province of religion, 
also, are to be solved solely in that same light. 

But ii may be said that my argument is against polygamy 
only — only against a plurality of husbands and wives. I an- 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 71 

swer that it is equally applicable to tlie condemnation of the 
licentiousness which is not practised under the name and shel- 
• ter of matrimony as to that which is. Government is bound to 
punish the one as well as the other, for precisely the same rea- 
son and with precisely the same severity^the robbery of great 
natural rights being precisely the same in the one case as in the 
other. That it is precisely the same is obvious, from the fact 
that the man whose commerce is not confined to his wife, but 
is with other women also, robs her of a husband, inasmuch as 
his licentiousness disqualifies him to be a husband ; and robs 
men of wives by disqualifying those other women to be wives. 
A similar robbery does the licentious woman practise upon her 
husband and upon her own sex. 

Not very remotely connected with the questions we have just 
been disscussing is that of divorce. This, like the others, is 
very readily solved in the clear and strong light of authoritative 
nature. But how puzzling is the problem if we grope for its 
solution among the uncertain and conflicting interpretations of 
books ! The way that this question is disposed of politically, 
and for the most part ecclesiastically, is but little in harmony 
with the teachings of nature, and is a further illustration of the 
worthlessness of artificial religions, and of the necessity of return- 
ing to the religion of nature and reason. 

Why should people marry ? Because " it is not good that the 
man should be alone." Because the human heart yearns for the 
freest communion and fullest sympathy with some other heart. 
Because no one is capable of going alone and uncounselled 
through the trials and perplexities before him ; and with no 
bosom friend to soothe and cheer and sustain him amid the sor- 
rows and sufferings that await him. It is for such reasons, and 
because joy is thereby doubled as well as pain divided, that the 
journey of life should be travelled in pairs — each pair being 
bound together in that mutual love which never wearies of its 
ministerings, and never forsakes its chosen companion. 

Much has been said and written in our day in favor of mak- 
ing a physically healthy offspring the paramount object in 
choosing a husband or wife. But, in point of fact, it is very 
rarely made such ; very rarely made any object whatever ; and, 
in my judgment, should never be. I would that persons should 
marry each other simply because they have fallen so deeply in 



72 THE RELIGION OF REASOK. 

love as to feel tliat they must — aj, already do belong to each 
other ; and are irrevocably chosen to care for and bless each 
other ; and can never, while life lasts, be separated from each 
other. Children are to be regarded not as the direct object, but 
as one of the natural and unstudied incidents of marriage. I 
admit that when parents find themselves bringing diseased and 
miserable children into the world they had better lock up their 
faculties than multiply such children. Let me here say that it 
is not only probable that the child of parents, whose marriage 
sprang from their true love of each other and a deep soul-union 
with each other, is far more likely to be morally sound than the 
child of parents who are brought together with about the same 
calculation for the improvement of human stock as enters into 
the improvement of breeds of animals ; but that it is also prob- 
able that he who was born with a poor physical constitution 
will be like to improve it if he have a good moral one ; while 
he who has a poor moral one will probably be reckless of his 
physical constitution. Thus has a love-marriage the promise of 
children healthier, not only in soul, but in the end in body also. 
Far away, then, from marriage be all calculation. The blindest 
and most improvident love-match is infinitely preferable to a 
calculated and calculating match. A marriage, if need be, in 
the face of all calculation because so brimful of love — a down- 
right can't-help-it marriage — ^is the true one. 

In what cases would I have divorce allowed ? I say, with the 
Catholic Church, in none. But would I not when there is 
adultery ? No, not even then. In any case whatever, it vio- 
lates great human rights. Nature, as we have seen from the 
census tables, does not allow it ; and Jesus, far greatest of all the 
moral interpreters of Nature, does not. It is true that there is one 
oifense for which he allows the husband to put away the wife • 
but he declares him to be guilty of adultery if he marries again. 
Though we are not bound to cohabit with an adulterous person, 
nevertheless, not even adultery breaks the tie of marriage. 
My wife is incapable of becoming the wife of another so long as 
I live. My crime may be such as to make it incompatible with 
her self-respect and her other duties to continue to live with me- 
But she is never to cease from her efforts for my reformation, 
and she is never to put herself in such circumstances as would 
disable her from receiving me, should I return to her in peni- 



THE RELIGION OF REASON". 73 

tence. This, however, she clearly would do by marrying an- 
other. I know not the genius nor requirements of Christianity 
if it would have the wife forgive her husband when he repents 
of his lying or theft, and it would not also have her take him 
back to her arms when he has repented of his adultery. 

I said that my wife ought not to marry another while I am 
alive ; and I have already argued in effect to this conclusion. 
I have already virtually shown that for her to do so would be 
not only to wrong me but to practise a robbery upon her sex, 
some of whom must go unmarried if others have more than one 
living husband. 

I said that in no case should there be divorce. . Let it be un- 
derstood that there can not be, and the caution in selecting a 
conjugal partner would be greatly increased. Moreover, there 
would be a fresh motive then for the seasonable healing of those 
dissensions in .married life which are so often allowed to run on 
and result in mutual estrangement and divorce. But so long 
as the marriage knot can be untied— re ven- though it can be by 
adultery only — so long will there be endeavors to untie it. 
The wicked wife may, for the sake of getting it untied, practise 
her arts to involve her husband in adultery, and the wicked 
husband may seek this end by similar means. 

I say no more of marriage, only that if it is to be invested 
with far more of beauty, dignity, and solemnity, and to be made 
far more productive of blessedness, it must be held to be as en- 
during as life itself. 

Thus have I set before you as far as I well could within the 
narrow limits of a single discourse the religion of nature. If 
the one great direct object of true religion is the protection of 
natural rights, then we must have a natural religion to accom- 
plish it. Natural rights never have been, and never will be, 
protected under artificial religions; and the fact that they are 
cloven down the earth over, is conclusive evidence that arti- 
ficial religions prevail the earth over. Friend of Temperance, 
friend of Peace, friend of Freedom ! work on against Intoxicat- 
ing Drinks, and War, and Slavery ; but flatter yourselves with 
no hope of permanent or extensive success — until the current 
religion has been supplanted by the religion of nature. Seeker 
of reform in politics I the current religion blocks up your way 
also. Corrupt and crazy as are our pohtics, they are neverthe- 



74 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

less no worse than onr religion. Nay, they are always one with 
it. The State is never more rotten than the Church. 

We frequently hear the light of nature spoken of as dim and 
doubtful and deceiving. But, in point of fact, is it not the only 
clear and bright and sure one ? Jesus himself is not another 
light. He is the perfect medium through which the light of 
nature shines. The common opinion is that nature is not a 
suf&cient source whence to make up our religion. A much- 
relied-on proof that it is not, is its failure to teach the doctrine 
of the resurrection of the body. I admit that it does not teach 
it. I admit that it teaches the reverse. But this doctrine, 
which is of so mu.ch interest to the superstitious and specula- 
tive, natural religion has nothing at all to do with. Its only 
concern is to make better the moral character of men ; and 
whether this doctrine is true or false does in no wise affect such 
character. But, saying nothing of his body, does nature teach 
that man shall live again ? Unless she does, how slow should 
we be to believe it ? A doctrine so important as another life is 
not to be confidently received on any less certain testimony 
than nature herself. Unless it is at least countenanced by na- 
ture, it should not be received at all. 

I believe there are strong, I will not say conclusive, proofs in 
nature that man shall live again. One is, that God made him 
in His own likeness. That He did so, we endeavored to show 
in an early part of this discourse. He put into him His own 
spirit, and made him to be His immortal companion and co- 
worker. Another of these proofs is, that God made him with, 
wants that this life can not satisfy. The horse and dog, and 
other creatures, whose knowledge is mainly instinctive, attain 
here their summit of knowledge, and therefore of enjoyment 
and usefulness also. But man gathers up all earthly knowledge 
only to long for more. The more he learns, the more unsatis- 
fied is he with the measure of his learning ; and by the very 
laws of his being, as they stand revealed to him in his own his- 
tory and experience, he seems compelled to regard his present 
degrees of knowledge, and consequently of usefulness and hap- 
piness also, as but earnests of their infinite growth hereafter. 
The more Kewton and Humboldt learned, the mpre they became 
little children ; not only in the growing simplicity of their spirit, 
but in the conscious poverty of their knowledge. With the 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 75 

growtli of their knowledge grew their sense of their ignorance ; 
and when they came to die, the rich and deep diapason, made 
up of all the voices of their being and all the voices of their 
experience, sounded out the sweet and full assurance that they 
were but in the infancy of their existence, and that their death 
was to be not their death, but a new and nobler life. 

I have but time to add, under this head, that if the spiritual- 
ists are not deceived, they have discovered another and a con- 
clusive natural evidence that man is to live again. It may be 
many years, however, before the phenomena of spiritualism will 
be suf&ciently accumulated and authenticated to establish in all 
minds the fact that Nature teaches another state of human ex- 
istence. 

Repeatedly, in this discourse, have I called the religion I am 
commending the religion of nature. With entire propriety I 
might always have called it the religion of reason, since it is 
reason that discerns and approves and adopts it. 

I notice that my use of the word reason in former discourses 
on the religion of reason is criticised. My critics appear to 
confine the meaning of the word to ratiocination, or the process 
of reasoning. But does it not also mean the result arrived at 
through such process ? The conclusion that the slave should 
be set free results from sound reasoning : in other words, is sup- 
ported by reason, and therefore may be and is called reason. 
So, too, the conclusion that men should not poison and defile 
themselves with intoxicating liquors and tobacco is another 
result of sound reasoning, and comes properly under the name 
of reason. The right — the right as it is seen in the light of 
reason — ^is surely one of the admitted definitions of reason ; and 
therefore have I felt justified to speak of reason as the standard 
with which to compare the claims of a religion. Does a religion 
attribute to God an arbitrary and cruel disposition ? — then do I 
condemn it, because it wars at that essential point with reason. 
Does it, on the other hand, accord to Him a paternal and loving 
spirit ? — so far, then, do I welcome it, because so far it abides 
the test of reason. 

My efforts the last few years in behalf of the religion of rea- 
son, have been construed by many into attacks upon Christian- 
ity. Nevertheless, they were intended as an humble means 
toward saving it. Love to God and love to man are the essen- 



76 THE EELIGION OF REASON". 

tial elements of Christianity ; and as nothing can be more rea- 
sonable than these, it is impossible that reason should make war 
upon Christianity. More than this : the religion of reason and 
the Christian religion are necessarily one. I admit that the 
religion of reason is a different thing from the spurious Christ- 
ianity which prevails in every part of Christendom. I admit 
that all its artillery is directed against that wicked and ruinous 
counterfeit. But the true Christianity — ^the Christianity of the 
Bible — ^the Christianity taught by the lips and life of Jesus — 
has no truer friend than reason. Indeed, it is alone by the 
force of reason, guided and blest of heaven, that a false Christ- 
ianity can be beaten back from its usurpations, and the true 
reenthroned. 

The religion of reason is indispensable, not only for the pur- 
pose of putting to flight a counterfeit, but also for the purpose 
of preserving the genuine Christianity, and gaining a hold for 
it on the public heart. It is indispensable not only to show 
how worthless is the Christianity which is in fellowship witli 
slavery and the dram-shop and other abominations, but also to 
persuade men of the truth and preciousness of that Christianity 
which allies itself to no wrong, and sustains every right. To 
persuade them I mean, by proofs addressed to their understand- 
ing, and not by appeals to their superstitious credulity. 

Because of their own deep sense of its excellence. Christians 
bave been wont to challenge an unquestioning and unhesitating 
faith in their religion. They have promptly sentenced to end- 
less woe all who dare to doubt the truth of any position of the 
Bible, or to call in question any of the principal ecclesiastical 
interpretations of it. True, many of them have acknowledged 
in words the right to investigate the popular views of Christian- 
ity : but with very few exceptions, they have all abjured it in 
practice. Even those who tolerate this investigation, do so with 
the understanding and advertisement that whoever shall dare 
come to a conclusion opposite their own, will, for a daring so 
wicked, merit everlasting punishment. But the growing intel- 
ligence of mankind will not much longer consent to repose a 
blind faith in the best religion. It will soon insist that even 
such a religion must be more than alleged — must be proved — 
to be true, before men will be bound to believe in it. In the 
ages of superstition, and in the subsequent ages of speculation, 



THE RELIGION OF REASON. 77 

througli whicli nations pass, a religion does not need to be 
bsicked with logic in order to gain currency even with the intel- 
ligent. But Christendom has now become so philosophical and 
practical that nothing except religion can longer pass in it with- 
out proof; and before many years more shall have elapsed there 
will be no longer even this exception. 

By the way, this assuming the truth of Christianity as the 
churches and their members do, is not, as they suppose it to be, 
honoring Christianity. It is dishonoring it. Truth is honored 
not by a blind assent to her claims, but by that acquiescence in 
them which she wins from those who faithfully investigate them. 
The Bible is insulted by being assumed to be true, but honored 
by those who think its claims upon their faith worthy to be 
investigated. 

Our claim of superiority for this age will be admitted only 
with qualifications. Our superiority in general science will be 
admitted, but not in the science of religion. Is not, however, 
the delusion as great as it is common, that the one gets ahead of 
the other? As a general proposition the one always keeps 
pace with the other. Do you say that France, while on the one 
hand making rapid progress in general science, has on the other 
become infidel ? I admit it, especially in respect to the intel- 
lectual portion of her people. But I claim that her infidelity 
proves her great progress toward the true religion ; for it proves 
that she is passing out of the superstitious and speculative ages 
that every nation will yet pass out of, and that she can no longer 
be satisfied with religions that claim faith without making good 
their claim. Her call now is for a religion which can be proved 
to be true ; and, unhappily, her belief to a very great extent is 
that Christianity can not be proved to be true. Such,. also, is 
the call, and to such an extent the unhappy belief of Italy and 
of some of the German States. Such, too, of vast numbers in 
England and America, who, in common with vast numbers in 
other lands, have either become, or always were infidels. But 
while we rejoice in their escape from the superstitious and vis- 
ionary, we are nevertheless not blind to their mistake — ^their 
great and lamentable mistake — 'that Christianity can not be 
proved to b# true. What if the churches and priesthood do 
assume the truth of it, and do virtually forbid the bringing 
forth of its legitimate and conclusive proofs ? Nevertheless the 



78 THE RELIGION OF REASON. 

proofs exist, and the religion of reason will take them up and 
use them to the scattering of all skepticism, and to the sure and 
successful planting of the blessed faith in the waste places and 
fallow grounds of infidelity. The religion of reason will prove 
that nature teaches love to God and love to man, justice and 
mercy, and all the elements of Christianity, and that, therefore, 
Christianity is true. Or, to use another form of statement, the 
religion, of reason will show that Christianity is true by showing 
that Jesus was, as we have already said, the true moral inter- 
preter of nature. 

Such will be the service that the religion of reason will ren- 
der to Christianity. Of boundless importance, however, as this 
service will be, it will nevertheless be but an incidental one. 
The direct object — the sole aim — of the religion of reason is: 
First, to convince every man that his reason is to be allowed 
(for his reason alone is authorized) to decide what shall be his 
conduct and character ; and, second, to keep him by means o± 
his own strength and of all the aids of heaven and earth in a 
state of unswerving fidelity to this high conviction and all its 
just requirements. Grod speaks in His creation and providence. 
Jesus speaks as ^' never man spake." His ministry will never 
cease to pour forth a flood of light. The great and good men 
and women of every age contribute their measures of enlighten- 
ment. But these are all voices for the ear of reason ; and not 
one of them — no^ not even that of the Grreat God — has a right 
to be heard in the sanctuary of the soul except through the 
influence of such voice upon the reason. I have been wont to 
say that the reason of man is the voice of God within him. If 
this is not literally true, nevertheless that God's voice reaches 
him through his reason is literally true. Save that which lies 
through our reason- wrought convictions, there is not for the 
Church, nor for the Priesthood, nor for the Bible, any road to 
those sacred chambers where the mind, under its sole responsi- 
bility, because sole master of itself, forms its judgments and 
comes to its decisions. It is God himself who has ordained this 
supremacy of reason ; and not to acknowledge this supremacy, 
constantly and practically and gratefully, is to be guilty of 
rebelling against His government. It is God himself who has 
made the bringing of all our appetites, passions and pursuits 
into quick and glad subjection to our reason, the great law of 



THE EELIGION OF EEASON. 79 

our nature ; and therefore not to obey this law is to prove our- 
selves traitors to our own nature. 

Yet awhile, the religion of reason will continue to be derided 
and hated. But it will be neither discouraged nor impatient. 
It will be of good cheer and bide its time. Yet awhile, super- 
stition, bigotry, and prejudice will continue to darken men's 
minds, and corrupt their hearts, and indispose them to the reign 
of reason. But the fallacy and failure of every religion which 
does not make its appeal to reason, become every day more and 
more manifest ; and thus every day is the way becoming clearer 
and easier for the progress of the religion of reason. It may 
not soon prevail, but it surely will prevail. Linger however it 
may, the day will yet dawn when men the earth over will 
believe that they must let their reason rule them in all things, 
especially in religion. It will yet be acknowledged that the 
most reason-ruled man is the most religious man — that to be 
reasonable is the highest possible attainment : nay, that reason 
— clear, sound, right reason — is itself religion — the highest and 
truest religion. But dawn that day when it may, not till then 
will man become what his Maker made him to be, for not till 
then will he realize and verify his own grand nature. Not till 
he shall study to mould himself after the standards and ideals 
of reason will his life and character be such as to prove to the 
universe that God made him but " little lower than the angels, 
and crowned him with glory and honor." 

Do you ask how we shall attain to an understanding of the 
duties of the religion of reason ? I answer by living reasonably. 
Jesus teaches that the doctrines of God are to be learned by 
doing the will of God. A similar rule applies in the present 
similar case. We must not act unreasonably, as do the secta- 
rians — for they organize parties with the intent of excluding 
from them the friends of Christ. As if the friends of Christ 
could be excluded without his being excluded also ! We must 
not act unreasonably, as do the temperance societies, which will 
one day denounce the selling of intoxicating drinks as the black- 
est crime, and will the next use their machinery and members 
to elect men whose official powers are employed to whitewash 
this blackest crime and screen it from punishment. Nor must 
we act unreasonably, as do the Abolitionists, who, though 
declaring Slavery to be the superlative piracy, do nevertheless 



80 THE EELIGION OF EEASON. 

elect men wlio honor it as law, and thereby give to it their offi- 
cial and sustaining sanction. He is in effect a Pro-Slavery man 
and not an Abolitionist, who does not hold slavery to be an 
outlaw, and does not confine his votes to such candidates as hold 
likewise. Nor must we act unreasonably, as do those clergy- 
men who on one occcasion pour out unmeasured execrations 
upon slavery, and iipon another virtually recall and sadly neu- 
tralize them by fellowshipping as Christians, and by honoring with 
their love and commending with their confidence, clergjrmen 
who are the most notorious and wicked defenders of slavery. 
Nor must we act unreasonably, as does that large class of pro- 
fessing Christians who, though recognizing themselves to be 
" the temple of G-od," and often praying to be cleansed " from 
all filthiness of the flesh and spirit/' are, notwithstanding, guilty 
of defiling body and soul with rum, tobacco, or opium. 

In all respects and all relations we must act reasonably, if we 
would see most clearly and learn most fully what the one true 
religion — the religion of nature or reason — calls for. Such rea- 
sonable acting will of itself reveal the duties that lie all along 
onr path, and make that path " as the shining light that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." 

But is reason sufBlcient for all these things ? It is. Not, 
however, unless the Divine influence npon it be unceasing. 
Man, as much as the planet, needs to be set in motion, and kept 
in motion by Grod. Yain is an enlightened reason, unless there 
be also the God-given spirit of submission to its control. Yain 
is it that man is made with ability to will and to do, unless he 
allow his Maker to work in him to wiU and to do. Yain all 
his physical, mental, moral powers if he let not Heaven dispose 
him to put them to a heavenly use. Yain, in a word, is the 
earthly existence of man unless he shall be born again. But, 
blessed be God, all the heaven-wrought changes of spirit, pur- 
pose, life, which are denoted by the figure of the new birth, and 
which every man must experience in order to be saved, lie 
within the reach of every man. If any are left unholy, it is 
because they refuse to be made holy. If any are cut off from 
the overflowing fountain of impartial love and free salvation, it 
is because they cut tl^mselves off from it. 



THE ONE TEST OE CHARACTER. 

DISCOUESE IN PETEKBOEO, July 22, 1860. 



"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." — Matt. 7 : 20. 

These are tlie words of Jesus. This immeasurably greatest 
of all moral teachers bids us judge men not by their profession, 
but by their practice ; not by their doctrines, but by their deeds ; 
not by their lips, but by their lives. The saying that " Actions 
speak louder than words," is not more trite than true. Words 
are the lowest, and actions the highest grade of evidence. Jesus 
did not mean that immoral, profane, polluting, shameless words 
are not evidence of the bad character of him who utters them. 
They are in themselves such evidence, and also in the fact that 
bad words are wont to be accompanied by bad deeds. Evil- 
speaking and evil-doing go together. No, Jesus meant that 
good words are not proof that the speaker of them iatgood. 
Bad words are bad fruits. But it does not follow that good 
words are good fruits. Good fruits may be hung upon a tree 
for the purpose of disguising its bad character. And good 
words may be spoken dissemblingly by one whose disposition 
is to speak bad words. 

There died a few weeks ago one of the wisest and best of 
men. I mean Theodore Parker. The churches believe that he 
was wicked. That he lived an eminently pure and loving and 
benevolent life, and died a peaceful death, they are constrained 
to admit. Nevertheless, they hold that he lived and died a 
wicked man. "Why ? Because his creed was wrong. His fruit 
was good ; but he was not good. And this do they hold, not- 
withstaDding Jesus said : " Neither can a corrupt tree bring 



82 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

forth good fruit;" and notwitlistanding, too, that lie immedi- 
ately deduced from this proposition the injunction : " Where- 
fore by their fruits ye shall know them." 

It is true, that in rare cases we may possibly be deceived by 
even this life-test of character. Nevertheless, it is not only our 
best test, but our only one. It is not for man to look directly 
upon the heart. All he can do is to argue what is within from 
what is without. " For man looketh on the outward appear- 
ance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." 

Outside of the churches, and of the sphere of their conven- 
tional religion, men judge one another by their fruits far more 
than by aught else. Happy that it is so. Else would the world 
get on far worse than it does. But inside of them the creed is 
the paramount question. I do not say that it is the sole crite- 
rion. I admit that the -life also is recognized as one. But this 
real test is so disparaged by being coupled with the fallacious 
one of a bundle of doctrines, as to be made nearly vain. From 
being put upon the same level with a test so entirely empty, it 
must soon sink far below it, if only for this reason among sev- 
eral, that a sectarian church must lose its distinctive character, 
and lose itself, if it cease to make its doctrinal test its main one. 
It is for its very life that such a church shall not cease to do this. 
That church-members vote for slave-catching and dram-shop 
candidates, proves that in the eye of the churches such an im- 
morality is as nothing compared with errors of doctrine. In 
their eye, lying is less sinfal than unsoundness in regard to the 
Atonement. 

This making of the creed the test is of course justified on 
the ground that a man^s creed determines his character. Now, 
I cheerfully admit, that not only does his life give shape to his 
creed, but that his creed does also give shape to his life. It is, 
however, his whole creed that does so, and not a very small 
part of it. It is his ten thousand beliefs, and not some half 
dozen of them. Just here is the greatest mistake of the 
churches. A man has this or that view of the future state ; 
this or that view of some, of the attributes or offices of Christ ; 
this or that view of one or another ecclesiastical doetrine ; and 
because he has them, the churches approve or condemn him. 
But what is his creed in regard to feeding the hungry, and 
clothing the naked, serving the sick, liberating the oppressed, 



THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 83 

supplying the homeless with homes, or in regard to innumerable 
other things, may have very far more to do with the formation 
of his character than have all these views on which such undue 
stress is laid. Yes, if we will judge a man by his creed, it should 
be by his whole creed. But how can we know his whole creed ? 
He does not know it himself. He may be unconscious of even 
those elements in it which are exerting the most influence upon 
his character. The most we can do toward learning his creed, 
is to observe the effect of it upon his life, and to argue its gen- 
eral character from this effect. Even in this wise we may be 
able to do no more than ascertain, and that, too, with but little 
correctness, the average or mean proportion of the truths and 
untruths, reason and superstition, wisdom and folly, mixed up 
in his creed. 

We have already admitted the influence of the creed upon 
the life. But in the light of what we have just said, it is mani- 
fest that we are to deduce the character of the creed from the 
character of the man, rather than that of the man from that of 
the creed — or, more correctly, from that of the few known ele- 
ments of his creed. In this light do we see how absurd it is to 
make the creed instead of the life the criterion of the character ; 
for in this light do we see that we must look to the life to learn 
what is the creed. 

The churches, in their bigotry and blindness, look at three or 
four of a man's beliefs, and count them for his whole creed. 
How foolish are they in not reflecting, that it comprises a vast 
number of other beliefs, some, or even many of which may be far 
more busy and successful in moulding the character than are 
any of those few which have been counted for all. Indeed, it 
may often be that none of those few beliefs are entitled to be 
called a part of the creed. They may be but speculations float- 
ing in the brain, and wholly distinct from the convictions which 
are stirring the depths of the soul, and making the life a good 
or a bad one^a blessing or a curse. 

Theodore Parker's creed may have contained errors. But 
that it was, as a whole, a good one, is proved by his good life. 
The creed of a liquor-drinking and tobacco defiled Doctor of 
Divinity, may include much truth ; but his vices prove that his 
creed is radically unsound. 

This false standard of character set up by the churches — this 



84 THE OXE TEST OF CHARACTEK. 

wide departure from that only one set up by Jesus — is fraught 
witli consequences the most deplorable. What less than a bad 
Btate of morals is to be looked for in a church where there is 
more concern because its member has given up the doctrine of 
election or the doctrine of falling from grace, than there would 
have been had his life been disgraced and his soul stained by 
" covetousness which is idolatry " ! Or what less than such a 
state of morals in a church where a member would much sooner 
be forgiven for getting drunk than for a misapprehension of 
something in the assumed character of the Yirgin Mary ! Or in 
a church where the 'denial of the Apostolic succession is a 
graver offense than the occasional soiling of the lips with an 
oath ! Or in a church where sprinkling babies produces more 
horror than stealing babies ! 

Self-complacency goes far to promote the growth of bad 
morals. But how filled with it must he be who is educated to 
regard devotion to doctrines as the highest merit, and to make 
far less account of the sins of his own life than of the doctrinal 
unsoundness of others ! The Thugs are probably as self-com- 
placent as our churches. What if they do commit murder 
every day ? Their test of character is not practical goodness. 
They, too, as well as the churches, reject Christ's test. They, 
too, as well as the churches, have a creed to go by and 
judge by. 

And bad, too, must be the state of morals outside of the 
churches, as long as it is so inside ; and as long as their claim 
to be " the light of the world" continues to be acknowledged 
outside. 

A handful of men in this country have, for these twenty or 
thirty years, been laboring to hold back their fellow-citizens 
from voting for rum and slavery. But all in vain. To vote 
thus is not held in the churches to be criminal, nor even in the 
slightest degree censurable. Nay, it is held to be cunning and 
commendable, and the reverse to be stupid and fanatical. The 
New- York Independent^ no less than the other religious news- 
papers, would have us all vote a party ticket, even though the 
candidates upon it be in favor of dram-shops and slave-catching. 
The church-member may vote power into hands that will use 
it to perpetuate and multiply the dram-shops, and to return the 
slave to the hell from which he had escaped — that hell in which 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAKACTER. 85 

the Bible is not allowed to be read ; nor even tbe name of God 
to be spelt ; and in wbicli parent, husband and wife, are names 
that carry no sacredness and no rights — and yet he can remain 
in good standing and in full fellowship with his brethren. But 
if, instead of having borne these bad and bitter fruits, by which 
Christ would have him judged, he had so much as cast one 
doubt upon some favorite tenet in its creed, he would have been 
hurled out of the church. " By their fruits shall ye know them," 
says Christ. By their creed, or rather by half a dozen of the 
ten thousand things in it, shall ye know them, say the churches. 

Every where is the Christ-test dishonored and thrown aside. 
Even in Peterboro, where so much has been done to restore it, 
the church- test still prevails. Creeds made up chiefly of a few 
stereotyped phrases about total depravity, trinity, atonement, 
election, baptism, etc., are still in the ascendant ; and the life is 
comparatively unimportant. I doubt not that even here in 
Peterboro there will, at the approaching election, be seen going 
to the polls, with tickets in their hands for dram-shop and slave- 
catching candidates, not a few church-members. These, our 
creed-bound and church-bound neighbors, are conscientious. 
They have been trained to regard their doctrinal and sectarian 
churches as very dear to the heart of Christ ; and all the world 
could not suffice to bribe them to lisp a word against their 
church-creed. Alas ! how many ages more must pass away ere 
ignorance and superstition and bigotry will be so far dispelled 
as to permit men to see that these churches are, in effect, the 
worst enemies of Christ ; and that the progress of his cause over 
the earth will be measured by their disappearance from it ! 
They are a libel on his character, and an outrage upon his 
memory. They have no right to his name. Theirs is another 
religion than his. Their unconsciousness of the fact does not 
alter the fact. 

We spoke of voting. So paramount to the life is the creed 
held to be — the profession to the practice — that the good deed 
of a morally right vote would pass rather to the discredit than 
credit of one's ecclesiastical soundness. Indeed, it is not too 
much to say that an uncompromising attitude in behalf of the 
great and vital reforms is regarded as at least prima facie evi- 
dence of infidelity. It was their devotion to these reforms that 
prepared the way for calling Grarrison and Phillips infidels. 



86 THE OITE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

Must not the churcli, if only from the necessities of self-defense, 
stigmatize those who are at work to throw down the abomina- 
tions which she helps sustain ? 

Our answer to the inquiry by what means the church has 
succeeded in thrusting aside Christ's test is, that it has done so 
by thrusting aside his religion. This religion is simple, intelli- 
gible, practical. Ignorance and weakness can comprehend it. 
It is revealed even unto babes. Its test of character corre- 
sponds necessarily with its own character, and is as simple, in- 
telligible and practical as itself Were this religion the com- 
plex and cabalistic one of the churches, the criterion of disciple- 
ship — of initiation into its mysteries — could not be simple. So 
simple, however, is the Christ-religion, that its only criterion of 
discipleship is the fruits of the life — the every-day conduct in 
the presence of the world. A religion, the sum total of whose 
requirements is comprised in the injunction " to do as you would 
be done by," must of course have a test of character which all 
men are capable of understanding and applying. But the reli- 
gion of the churches, not being this common-sense and easily- 
understood religion, but being a doctrinal and dif&cult one, 
must necessarily have doctrinal and difficult tests of character. 

How numerous and vast the changes that would result from 
purging the churches of their spurious religion, and supplying 
its place with the religion of JeSus ! It is in the doctrinal re- 
ligion that sectarianism lives and moves and has its being. A 
fish out of water is not more out of its element than is sectarian- 
ism when out of the foggy atmosphere of the doctrinal religion. 
Bring the Eoman Catholic and the countless Protestant sects 
into the sphere of the simple, practical religion of Jesus, and 
they would quickly die. In that sphere are no facilities and no 
encouragements to continue their work of comparing tweedle- 
dums with tweedledees. But to deny them this work is to deny 
them their life. Catholics and Protestants would not all die. 
Their sects only. Good Catholics and good Protestants would 
still live ; and their immeasurably higher life in that sphere 
would be as much more useful and beautiful as it would be 
more harmonious and happy. 

Once succeed in expelling from the churches their conven- 
tional and unnatural religion, and in bringing into its stead the 
religion of Jesus, and there will never be another book written 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAEACTER/ 87 

about the Immaculate Conception, nor the Apostolic Succession, 
nor Election, nor the points of Calvinism. Turning these nomi- 
nal churches of Christ into real churches of Christ, would turn 
them into associations for feeding the hungry, clothing the 
naked, delivering the oppressed, lifting up the low, and enlight- 
ening the benighted. Their present degrading, useless, perni- 
cious occupations would be gone forever ; and they would stand 
forth glorious witnesses for God and his dear Son in every de- 
partment of outcast and trampled-down humanity. 

The abolition of the doctrinal religion, and, along with it, of 
sectarianism, could not fail to be followed by the abolition of 
the technical ministry. Not that a Charles G. Finney, a Beriah 
Green, a George B. Cheever, and a Henry Ward Beecher would 
no longer be needed. Far more than ever would they then be 
sought after: — none of them, however, for the purpose of hav- 
ing them defend this or that group of church-doctrines, but all 
of them for the purpose of having them persuade men to buy 
and sell and vote right, and in all respects live right, and th,us 
honor the claims of a practical every day and every where 
religion. 

Theological seminaries would, of course, go down stream 
along with the doctrinal religion and the technical ministry. A 
theological seminary is an institution for training men to teach 
the doctrinal religion. Hence its Greek and Hebrew studies, its 
metaphysics and abstractions. But to fit men to teach the one 
true and practical religion, three years spent in an honest law- 
yer's offi.ce, or behind an honest merchant's counter, would avail 
unspeakably more than that amount of time spent in a theo- 
logical seminary. Actual contact with a great variety of living 
heads and living hearts in the busy walks of life serves far 
more than do poring over books and dreaming over doctrines 
to furnish the teacher of the religion of Jesus with advantages 
for making his ministry effectual. 

"We next inquire how it is that Christendom has consented to 
remain in bondage to doctrinal religions. The answer is, be- 
cause her peoples are not yet sufficiently independent and 
courageous to overcome their habit of submission to authority, 
nor sufficiently enlightened to desire to overcome it. Every 
doctrinal religion is a religion of authority, and holds its sub- 



00 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

jects, not in virtue of being understood by tliem, but in virtue 
of its authority over tliem. 

A great curse is the authority which usurps the place of rea- 
son. Liberated from their thraldom to this despot, men would 
soon be more like angels than like the men they now are ; and 
earth would soon be more like heaven than like the earth it now 
is. For then, feeling their own responsibility for their own 
steps, they would not submit to be led bhndfold by others. 
For then, where now the million ignorantly and superstitiously 
and tamely do the bidding of the ecclesiastical and civil power, 
there would be a million free minds at work, and most of them 
at work to swell the tide of human wisdom and human happi- 
ness. For then, reason being in exercise, where now even in 
the highest matters it is suffered to be overridden by the 
claims of authority, truth would commonly be estabhshed ; and 
the calmness, order, and beauty which ever wait upon her, 
would succeed to the confusion and misery that must continue 
to overspread the earth, so long as it shall be held that ignorant 
superstitions and cowardly submission better become men than 
the studying of their duties in the light of their reason. 

It is true, that not every one would improve his release from 
authority. To many it would prove polluting, license instead 
of rational freedom. Nevertheless, even in such cases, it would 
be more the blameless occasion of revealing an existing charac- 
ter than the responsible creator of a bad one. It is also true 
that authority can not be dispensed with every where. The 
child must obey its commands, even its wrong commands, 
whilst as yet it is too young to see them to be wrong. Often- 
times the sick man, not being able to judge of the prescription 
for his cure, must submit himself entirely to authority. So, too, 
when in danger of shipwreck, all on board must conform their 
efforts to the captain's commands, whether they can or can not 
see them to be wise. So, too, the jury must acknowledge the 
authority of the scientific witness or expert, and receive his tes- 
timony on subjects they do not comprehend. Authority in 
such instances is proper, is necessary. Eeason approves it. 
To reject it would be most unreasonable. We war with no 
authority but that which invades the province of reason ; but 
that, in short, which wars with reason. 

The assumptions of authority by Civil Government, and the 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAKACTER. 89 

abject and wicked submission to them, work very great injury 
to the human family and very great dishonor to God. It is 
hekl that what Government commands, be it right or wrong, 
must be obeyed. Nay more, that the authority of Government 
precludes all inquiry into the moral character of its commands. 
The panting slave must be put back into the pit from which he 
had escaped, because it is Government that says he must. The 
innocent Mexicans must be robbed of territory and murdered, 
because it is Government that says they must. And all this 
must take place irrespective of what justice and mercy and the 
God of justice and mercy say, either in or out of the Bible. 
Government instead of God is looked to as authority. The 
Legislature and Judiciary, instead of confining themselves to 
the declaration of God's law, would have themselves regarded 
as the very source of law. 

What but a boundless authority claimed for Government 
could have led the Supreme Court of the United States when 
dooming certain freemen to slavery, to say that : " Every State 
has an undoubted right to determine the status or domestic and 
social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory ?"* 
And what but their recognition of such authority can induce 
the people to acquiesce in this opinion of the Court ? The 
Jhief- Justice, who delivered it, holds in effect that his State of 
Maryland can, on his returning to it, make him a slave ; and 
that President Buchanan can likewise be made a slave on his 
returning to Pennsylvania ! By the way, there are perhaps no 
men who would have less reason to complain of such a fate 
than these two, who have done so much to fasten slavery on 
millions. 

It is owing in no small part to the recognition by the 
people of this boundless authority of Government, that they 
suffer, and even welcome, other intrusions of Government into 
matters with which Government has legitimately nothing to do. 
Veneration goes far toward explaining the readiness of the peo- 
ple to let Government meddle with their schools and churches 
and with their God-given liberty to buy and sell freely in all 
the markets of the world. The American people are paying 
three times as great an amount of postage as they would have 

* Strader et al., v. Graham, 10th Howard. 



90 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

to pay, were tlie carrying of letters and papers, left to the free 
competition of companies and individuals. Their blind admira- 
tion of a great authoritative power is no small reason why they 
consent to leave the Post-Offi.ce in the bungling and blundering, 
defrauding and despoiling hands of Grovernment. The legiti- 
mate limits of Government are very narrow. They comprise 
nothing but the protection of person and property. The peo- 
ple of State after State and nation after nation will, as fast as 
they shall become enlightened, snap asunder the leading-strings 
of usurped Governmental authority, and assert their right to be 
no longer treated as children, but to be allowed the liberty of 
men. 

It is, however, in its enormous assumptions in the sphere of 
religion, that we find authority doing its worst work. To these 
assumptions more than to the aggregate of all other causes are 
owing the dwarfed intellect, the shrivelled .spirit^ the deep de- 
basement of mankind. Eeason is competent to determine all 
the duties of that sphere. Therefore reason should be allowed 
to reign in it. Nevertheless reason is shut out from it, and au- 
thority fills it. Am I asked whether not even God's authority 
should be welcomed in the sphere of religion ? I answer that 
it exists every where, and should be welcomed every where. 
But God's authority comes to men through their reason. Eea- 
son is the authoritative voice of God in the soul. 

I said that a doctrinal religion is a religion of authority. To 
render it more fully and effectually such, the mass of the doc- 
trines are made so metaphysical or rather so muddy, as to be 
comprehended not at all by the common intellect, and scarcely at 
all by the uncommon intellect. Take for instance the doctrines 
of the religion, which is current among ourselves. Not more 
than ten men in this town, if called on to explain them, would 
be able to make a decent show of understanding them ; and 
even the ten men, including if you please all the ministers, 
would interpret them quite differently. Not two of them would 
agree at all points. In the presence of these mj^stical phrases, 
that abound in the formulary of the church faith, learning is 
about as much at fault as ignorance. Whether you have or 
have not been to college makes but little difference in your at- 
tempt to understand them. 

How amazing that the common-sense of mankind should 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAKACTER. 



91 



suffer these "anintelligible doctrines to be made tests of character ! 
But even were thej intelligible, it would scarcely be less absurd 
to make them such. The longer I live, however, the more do 
I see that even common-sense prostrates itself before an ecclesi- 
astical religion. Such religion is authority : and men of sense 
as well as men of nonsense have been trained not to dare to 
speak nor even think against authority. 

The- true religion is a reasonable one — a "reasonable service" 
—to use the words of the Apostle. It makes its appeal direct- 
ly to reason. Says its great Teacher : " And why judge ye not 
even of yourselves what is right?" Observe that he does not 
say : " Why/ee? you it not ?" — or " Whj fancy you it not?" — 
or " Why receive you it not upon the authority of the priest- 
hood, the council, the church, the book?" But he says: 
" Whj judge ye not?" — or what is the same : " Why reason jq 
not what is right ?" That Jesus should thus submit his religion 
to the reason of his hearers is not strange when we consider the 
exceeding simplicity of its character. That the churches can 
not do so with theirs is obvious from the fact that instead of 
being, as his is, universally intelligible, it is a technic, a trade, 
a mystery. Whilst his religion is apparent to reason at first 
sight, their unintelligible one claims assent by force of author- 
ity. Whilst his religion courts the severest trials of reason, and 
comes out of them all brighter and stronger, theirs is horrified 
that reason should presume to pass upon religion. 

Mohammedans, Hindoos, and other Eastern peoples, are more 
earnest and devout worshipers than Christians. This is the 
natural result of their being less enlightened. For being so, 
they are the more ready subjects of authority, and the more 
implicit believers in the dogmas which that authority imposes 
upon them. In this wise is it explained that the Eoman Catho- 
lic has so much more faith, and earnestness, and zeal than the 
Protestant. For whatever may be said of the equality of edu- 
cated Catholics with educated Protestants, a,ll must admit that, 
in point of intelligence, the Catholic masses fall below the Pro 
testant. Never were Protestant nations and communities in- 
creasing so rapidly in knowledge as in our day ; and, therefore, 
never were Protestant infidels (infidels in the sense of having 
forsaken their ecclesiastical faith) multiplying so rapidly. These 
infidels have become too enlightened for their religion. They 



92 THE OXE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

have outgrown a doctrinal religion. If a religion of authority 
would once do for them, it nevertheless can do for them no 
longer. Their religious want, lying deep in their rational 
nature, can now be supplied with nothing less than a rational 
religion ; with nothing less than the religion of Jesus. It will 
yet come, by means of the rapid enlightenment of the Protest- 
ant world, that between reason on the one hand and authority 
on the other, there will be no room left for Protestantism. As 
a religion of authority, Eoman Catholicism is admirable. In 
the breaking up of the Protestant churches, such of their mem- 
bers as shall still prefer a religion of authority, will go off to 
Catholicism, and the remainder will mount up to the religion 
of reason. 

The doctrinal religion would soon lose its hold on the public 
mind, were it not kept wrapped up in mystery. Mystery is as 
indispensable here, as in the occupation of Signor Blitz and 
his fellow-jugglers. Preachers theie are of this religion, who 
would no sooner consent to lay bare its methods and machinery 
than would a quack doctor to reveal the hidden sources of his 
boasted skill, and tell the ingredients of his never-failing medi- 
cine. Their use of the Bible (and by some of them a juggling 
use) is what chiefly enables our clergy to maintain the author- 
ity of their doctrinal rehgion. They say that this book — all 
of it, every chapter and every sentence of it — came from God. 
Whoever denies, or even faintly doubts this assertion, is a hated, 
persecuted infidel. Moreover, he is such if he fails to find in 
it — although ever so honestly intent on finding them — some of 
the doctrines which the clergy claim to be in it. Protestants 
encourage a freer reading of the Bible than do the Catholics. 
But what of that ? The Protestant who ventures to oppose 
the standard interpretations of the Bible, is as promptly and 
cordially anathematized as is the Catholic, who makes a similar 
experiment upon ecclesiastical tolerance. 

How happy if all the preachers in Christendom could be 
induced to rise in their pulpits on a given Sabbath, and tell 
their congregations how the world came by the Bible. This 
honesty and bravery would be followed by a greater revolution 
than the world has ever yet seen ; and it would be no less 
blessed than great. Should all the clergy of Peterboro tell 
their hearers next Sunday the simple facts in the case, Peter- 



THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 93 

boro would be filled with astonishment at the news ; and she 
would be enlightened as she never had been. The thick church- 
clouds, which still envelop our people, would disappear almost 
as suddenly and almost as visibly too, as the mists of the morn- 
ing before the rising sun. It is of little avail — certainly of lit- 
tle present avail — for persons not belonging to the churches, to 
tell these simple facts. They can not get a hearing. The men 
who have parties to back them up, can alone be heard in this 
party-ridden, party-governed world. The men whose con- 
sciences compel them to stand outside of both the political and 
ecclesiastical parties, must be content to live and die without 
exerting the influence which their " soul breaketh for the long- 
ing that it hath " to exert. Perhaps, however, (and this is their 
hope and consolation,) that years or ages after they shall have 
been gathered to their fathers, rich harvests of good to man and 
glory to Grod shall be reaped from the seed which they sowed 
in faith and watered with tears. 

Yes, great indeed would be the sensation in these congrega- 
tions of Christendom, should their preachers confess to them 
that the Bible is but a selection from a great heap of Jewish 
writings. Greater still would it be, should they proceed to con- 
fess, that some of these writings were selected, and some of 
them rejected, by small majorities. And into what astonish- 
ment and staring would not these congregations be wrought, 
when their preachers had added that the compilers of the Bible 
lived in a dark and superstitious age ; that no one pretends that 
they were inspired ; and that history, so far from informing us 
of their intellectual or moral character, has not preserved so 
much as the name of even one of them ! 

Many, who juggle others with the Bible, are themselves jug- 
gled by it. It is often the case that men become the dupes of 
their own dupings. A striking instance of this have we in the 
Kev. Dr. Gardiner Spring. He justifies slavery. He would 
not liberate the slaves even if he could do so by offering up a 
single prayer. He would have his poor colored brothers and 
sisters sent back into the pit from which they had escaped! 
Kow, whence comes all this diabolism? It comes from his 
believing in the blasphemous nonsense which ecclesiastical 
authority attributes to the Bible. He believes that God cursed 
the blacks — and with so enduring a curse that, even in the mil- 



94 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

lennmm, tliey are still to suffer under it. He confounds tlie 
belchings of drunken Noah's anger with the curse of God. 
But what blasphemous nonsense is it, that Grod curses his 
children ! Alas ! how still prevalent are the Pagan concep- 
tions of "Our Father," who loves all and hates none, who 
blesses all and curses none ! Doubtless Dr. Spring believes, in 
corumon with the churches, that Grod was such a bloody mon- 
ster as to command the Jews to torture and slay innocent women 
and children. All these absurdities, which he has been so long 
trying to make others believe, he has come at last to believe 
himself. Yery likely that fifty years ago he thought he believed 
them. That he now really believes them is owing not a little 
to the reflex influence upon himself of his teachings to others. 
In duping others he has duped himself. 

The authoritative interpreters of the Bible have made nearly 
the whole of Christendom believe that it teaches that children 
are born devils; and that dying in childhood, they must all 
drop into an eternal hell, unless the blood of Christ, or bap- 
tism, or something else exterior to themselves, shall save them 
from this fate. I do not believe that this doctrine is taught in 
the Bible — this doctrine of innate total depravity, on which 
rests the superstructure of the theology of Christendom. But 
if I did, I should nevertheless refuse to be guilty of such a 
total and abject renunciation of my reason as to believe in the 
monstrous doctrine. To believe in it would be to transmute 
my loving Father into the most hateful of all tyrants. To be- 
lieve in it, would be to cut all the sinews of my obligation to 
love and honor Him. This doctrine must be cast out of Christ- 
endom before Christendom will become like Christ. We admit 
that thousands of good men believe in it ; but their goodness 
exists notwithstanding it, and not because of it. 

As I have already said, I do not believe that this doctrine is 
in the Bible. David's saying, " Behold, I was shapen in ini- 
quity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," only proves that 
the dear penitent was in a mood to write the bitterest things 
against himself And Paul's words to the Ephesians, from 
which the translators and the churches argue that we are all by 
nature "the children of wrath" — objects of the Divine wrath — 
mean, probably, but little else than that men are naturally, as 
he taught the people of Lystra, *' of hke passions." Moreover, 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAEACTER. 95 

I have but little respect for wliatever in the Bible is at war with 
the teaching of Christ : and if this book says that children are 
hell-born, nevertheless He says that *' Of such is the kingdom 
of heaven." I believe that children are born good, and become 
bad; born religions, and become irreligious. I do not mean 
that they all become bad and irreligious, though it is certain 
that the great mass of them do. That they do is in my judg- 
ment owing in no responsible way to human nature ; nor in 
any comparatively large degree to the imperfections which they 
inherit from those who had violated the physical, intellectual, 
or moral laws of that nature ; but mainly to the misleading and 
corrupting influences to which, not in their first years only, but 
even in their early months also, they are subjected by others. 

Not only do I believe that they who die in childhood go to 
heaven in virtue of their intrinsic and inborn state, but I also 
believe that men and women can not go to heaven until they 
have first become as little children — simple, sincere, ingenuous, 
trustful as little children. Jesus himself says they can not. 
. Again, these authoritative teachers hold that the Bible de- 
clares Christ to be the essential Grod, and that whoever doubts 
the doctrine must perish. I do not think it is taught there. As 
I view it, Christ teaches that he is one with the Father in no 
other sense than that in which he would have us all one with 
each other and one with the Father. But this is a great sense ; 
and identifies him in spirit and moral character with Grod himself. 

The world had one God. It did not need another. But it 
needed a perfect man ; and in Christ that was given to it. Had 
reason been allowed its freedom in the Bible and in religion, 
this perfect man, " the measure of the stature of whose fulness" 
is reached in being a perfect man, would have been left to the 
world. But that same authority, which thrust out reason 
from the Bible and religion, carried him away from the sphere 
of simple manhood where, and where only, he was needed ; 
and subhmated him into a superfluous God. Never, until he 
shall again be restored to that sphere which was robbed of him, 
will he be generally held, even by the mass of Christians, to 
be in all things the example of men. And never, until he shall be 
so held, will they follow or even aim to follow him in all things. 

We set before a bad little child the example of a good little 
one. But who would be so foolish as to think of weaning 

2 



96 THE OKE TEST OF CHARACTERv 

early cMldliood from its perversities by commending to it tlie 
ripe harvests of trath and virtue in the life of some jDrecioua 
white-haired saint? The space between them would be too 
wide to make the example influential. But infinitely wider is 
the space between man and God — ^between the best man and 
Tesus, if Jesus is God. 

Christians will agree with the propositions that Christ would 
not vote for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates ; and that 
he would not take up a gun to shoot people. But the mass of 
them will thus agree, because, believing him to be God, they be- 
lieve that he would not vote for anyone, and would not take up a 
gun for any purpose. They will thus agree, because they believe 
that to talk of his handling a vote or a gun is to drag him down 
from Godhood to manhood. It needs a man to be an example 
for men. In respect to some sublime abstractions we may aspire 
to copy God. But in respect to the practical, every-day con- 
cerns of life, He will never be our example. For that we need 
a man — a man "of like passions" with ourselves ; our fellow, 
who can walk by our side without having to come out of his 
sphere and down from his nature ; and who can walk with us 
every where where it is right for us to walk, and do every thing 
which it is right for us to do. Whatever may be said to the 
contrary, the great body of Christians will never, so long as 
they look upon Christ to be God, or a being compounded of 
God and man, make him their example in the whole range of 
human affairs. They will continue, as now, to go a little way 
with him, and a great way against him. They will weep with 
Christ over the slave, over the landless, over the dram-shop- 
ruined family, and over the desolations of war ; and then they 
will turn against him and vote for slavery and land-monopoly 
and the dram-shop and war. Some twenty years ago I was 
urging a man to vote for the slave on the ground that God 
votes for him. He laughed in my face, and told me that God 
doesn't vote. He shu.t out God from the ballot-box. And so 
also do the great mass, who believe him to be God, shut out 
from it Christ and his example and influence. 

I do not forget that in these remarks I have exposed myself 
to the inquiry whether Unitarians do actually more than Trini- 
tarians, make Christ their example in all things. The compar- 
ison should be between Unitarians who really believe in Christ, 



THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTEK. 97 

and Trinitarians who really believe in him. Both the one and 
the other are few. Keallj to believe in Christ is to be imbued 
with his spirit, established in his principles, and identified with 
his aims. To such belief, the view that he is or is not God, is 
in no wise essential. All who thus really believe in him will 
make him their example. But they who connect with this be- 
lief the belief that Christ is but a man — ^but a man, although 
filled with his Father's spirit — would, in ten thousand instances, 
be far more like to recognize his example than would they who 
believe him to be God. Admit that in every matter of life they 
would both feel his precept — nevertheless, to associate his ex- 
ample with it, might be as violent and unusual for the one 
party as it would be natural, easy and common for the other. 

To return to the Bible. It is not perfect. No work of man 
is. Inconsiderable, however, are the mistakes which are mingled 
with its essential, sublime and saving truths. Few and small 
are the spots upon this glorious sun. No where else does the 
human heart come in contact with such eloquent and mighty 
inspirations. And in more enlightened ages, when human au- 
thority shall be driven out of the realm of religion, and human 
reason shall be installed in its place, the Bible will be no longer 
an object of blind idolatry, but a treasure comprehended by the 
understanding and cherished by the soul. Then its religion, 
instead of being but the superstition of Christendom, will be the 
accepted and sound religion of the whole world. For the religion 
of the Bible is a reasonable religion ; and when reason shall be 
left free to investigate the claims of the Bible — to approve here 
*and disapprove there — upon its own solemn responsibility — this 
book of books will be found to commend itself triumphantly, 
even to that severe investigator. Its standard teachers make it 
say much that is very good, and much that is very bad. They 
make it a book of the very best, and also of the very worst in- 
fluences. Many a great folly here, and many a gre^t crime 
there, do they make it sanction. Not a few of them would 
have us go to the Bible for a warrant for slavery. But as well 
might they bid us look into heaven for Satan as into this pre- 
cious book for such warrant. Moreover, the effect of finding 
slavery in the Bible could not be to whitewash slavery. It 
could be only to leave a big black blot upon the Bible. 

That there are good men in Christendom with great sins 



98 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 

upon them proceeds more from the worship of the Bible and 
of its authoritative interpretations than from all other causes. 
I am often censured for my belief that there are pious slave- 
holders. Nevertheless there are such, and ever will be, wher- 
ever slavery exists, and there is also a worshiped book. Inter- 
pretations of the book are made to suit the interests of its 
worshipers, and thus to blind them. The great wickedness 
which there is in some of these interpretations is not perceived 
by all — no, no even by all who are blessed with Christian dis- 
cernment. There are sins, and great ones too, which can be so 
presented as to deceive and win the approbation of even a 
Christian. But this can no longer be so, after he shall have 
com^ to let his reason instead ^f his Fetich-book decide moral 
questions for him. If the idolatry of a book and of its author- 
ity-imposed interpretations can so pervert the vision that even 
slavery shall appear right, nevertheless in the light of reason 
there can be no such illusion. No pious slaveholders will there 
be after the reasonable and practical religion of Jesus shall 
-have taken the place of bundles of theory and superstition. 

JSTever, never can the Bible be loved as it should be by any 
one, who feels himself shut up to it as an authority, and his 
free inquiry into the truthfulness of any of its pages forbidden. 
It can be intelligently and truly loved only so far as reason 
grasps it. The much talk that we are bound to love things in 
the Bible, which are above our reason, is all nonsense. We 
can believe only so far as belief seems reasonable ; and we can 
not love what we can not believe. The Bible is of but little 
use to those who receive it without understanding it. The dif-* 
ference between the Bible received upon authority and the 
Bible received through the reason is the difference between un- 
digested and digested food. 

What a blessing to the world will not the Bible be when, in- 
stead of 'being clung to superstitiously and bigotedly and hypo- 
critically and compulsorily, Beason shall own its tiaith, and be 
imbued with its elevating and sanctifying spirit I The Bible 
speaks reasonably through reason. But it speaks absurdly un- 
der authority. It is the policy of authority to teach absurdi- 
ties. In proportion to its teaching of the reasonable, would it 
leave less room for itself, and make more for reason. This 
authority will quite vanish from the world when the world shall 



THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER. 99 

come to have less taste for the conventional than the natural, 
for the reasonable than the absurd. 

It is this religion of authority which accounts for the poor 
character of the great mass of church-members. Large-hearted 
men, such as William Goodell and George B. Cheever, are 
working hard to arouse them to take hold of the great Eeforms 
so vital to mankind. But they will find their work to be nearly 
in vain. It had far better be expended upon the more hopeful 
material outside of the churches — upon the men whose humanity 
is not suffocated by a spurious religion. The current religion, 
warring upon reason with its authority, and appalling the heart 
with its pagan terrors, and substituting policy for principle, is j List 
the magnet to draw into the churches the base and the timid ; and 
is just the power to reduce to baseness and timidity the braver 
and loftier spirits, who here and there find their way into them. 

The espousal of these Eeforms, and an unflinching, life-long 
adherence to them requires honesty, disinterestedness and cour- 
age. But the last place to look for the growth of these high 
qualities is under the shadow of an authority religion. Look 
there for selfishness and abjectness, cowardice and corruption. 
The noble man you find there is the rare exceptional case, in 
which resistance is successfully maintained against influences so 
generally irresistible. A servile spirit and a shrunken intel- 
lect are the common and legitimate product of the religion of 
the churches. So it is, that whilst the true church of Chriet is 
the school for producing the choicest specimens of humanity, 
these sham churches of Christ are the manufactories of the 
meanest. 

I am well aware that I speak offensively. Nevertheless, do I 
not speak truly ? What is meanness if tyranny is not ? What 
is the meanest of all meanness if it is not that tyranny which 
would ''rob the poor because he is poor" ? But of this very 
type of superlative meanness is the tyranny of American slav- 
ery ; and of American slavery are the American churches the 
bulwark. To this bear witness not only James G-. Birney and 
Albert Barnes, but every other man of just observation. Why, 
even the churches of William Goodell and George B. Cheever 
will, at the coming election, and this, too, notwithstanding the 
remonstrances of these faithful men, vote, not only for dram- 
shop candidates, but also for slave-catching candidates. 



100 . THE ONE TEST OF CHAI^ACTER. 

Ko, the first work of the Goodells and Cheevers is to set 
themselves to displace, with the reasonable religion of Jesus, 
this authority -religion of the churches — this corrupting and 
crushing religion. Until this is done they will, as I have 
already sul^stantially said, do well to look for fellow-reformers 
outside of the churches — to look for them among the men whose 
generosity and manliness have not been conquered by the 
withering influences which prevail inside of the churches. . 

Yet awhile the churches will continue to be jealous of 
reason ; and no wonder, for it is their enemy — ^the enemy of 
all human authority in religion ; and hence, the enemy of all 
doctrinal religions. Yet awhile the churches will continue 
to talk foolishly about reason, and to deny its right to pass 
upon religion. Yet awhile the churches will consider it a 
mark of piety to speak disparagingly of reason, and will regard 
themselves as honoring God by pouring contempt on this no- 
blest attribute of man. Nevertheless, God is not with them in 
this folly. In his sight human reason is greater than the sun 
and stars. Not only would He have the Bible passed upon by 
reason, but He submits his own works and ways — nay, his own 
self — to the inquiries and tests of human reason. I do not say 
that He submits them to the bundle of passions and prejudices 
which men are wont to confound with reason. Nor do I say 
that men can, by exercising their reason in a proud spirit, learn 
all of God that they need to know. They will learn little of 
Him, unless they shall exercise it in an humble spirit. Nor do 
I say that human reason can, without the help of divine 
influences, discern divine things. "Blessed are the pure in 
heart, for they shall see God." They alone who have purity of 
heart have the heaven-anointed vision. They alone who are 
"born again" have a reason enlightened and trustworthy 
in spiritual things. They alone can see the kingdom of God. 
"Yerily, verily I say unto thee : Except a man be born again, 
he can not see the kingdom of God." 

Permit me to close my Discourse with a few words respecting 
this Church, which, taking the name of its locality, as did every 
Apostolic Church, calls itself " The Church of Peterboro." It 
is now nearly seventeen years since we gathered ourselves from 
the sects. We could no longer endure the sectarian or creed- 
tests. We believed in Jesus Christ, and we therefore held that 



THE ONE TEST OF CHAKACTER. 101 

men sliould be judged by tbeir lives instead of tTieir lips — by 
tbeir deeds instead of their doctrines. From tliat day to this 
we have been misrepresented and maligned by the sects ; and 
from this time onward all who refuse to adopt the Christ-test 
as the one test of character, will have no patience with us. "We 
are stigmatized as " The Infidel Church" — but not at all so be- 
cause of our lives — and only so because we reject the tests of 
Bectarianism, and persevere in knowing men — approving or dis- 
approving them — " by their fruits." Most of all, are we disliked 
and spoken against when '' Election " is at hand — especially 
one of imusual interest. Such an election now agitates the 
country. The candidates of the sectarian churches will, as 
usual, be slave-catchers and dram-shop upholders; and our 
little Church will, as usual, insist on practical righteousness, 
and condemn voting for such candidates. 

We are told, that a Church should not meddle with politics. 
There is, however, nothing on earth, that should give it more 
concern. Politics, rightly interpreted, are the care of all for 
each — ^the protection afforded by the whole people to every one 
of the people ; and hence a Church might better omit to apply 
the principles of Christ to every thing else than to politics. 
Manifestly, I am not speaking here of the satanic politics, which 
have ever cursed every part of the world, but of the Heaven- 
commanded and Heaven-imbued politics, which have never yet 
extended their blessed sway over any people. Manifestly, I am 
speaking not of the politics which are, but of the politics which 
are to be. 

We are told that a Church should say nothing against the 
wickedness of voting, even for the worst candidates. But we 
claim, that no wickedness lies outside the jurisdiction of a Church, 
least of all the wickedness which its members are in danger of 
perpetrating. 

Bum and Slavery may be called the two great " Institutions " 
of this country. They sway the political parties, and these in 
turn sway the churches. Were the churches more concerned 
for right-doing than for acceptable professing, thej would be 
effectual breakwaters against the tide of corruption, which the 
parties pour over the land. But not being churches of Christ, 
they are easily turned into tools of the parties. Their morals 
never rise higher than the morals of the parties. They never 



102 THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTEK. 

lead. Tliej always follow. The morals and manners of a 
cliTircli should be such, as to realize our highest conceptions of 
human dignity. But these sham churches, too low to be taken 
into partnership even with politicians, are but taken into their 
service. 

Church of Peterboro ! Be true to your own God at the ap- 
proaching Election. He is not your God, who would have men 
vote for candidates who are in favor of a white man's Party, 
and of excluding the black man from suffrage and citizenship. 
For your God " made of one blood all nations," and is impartial 
and loving toward them all. He is not your God, who would 
have men vote for candidates in favor of seizing the poor inno- 
cents, as they fly from the pit of slavery, and of casting them 
back into it. Eor your God would have the ruler do justice to 
the "poor of the people, save the children of the needy, and 
break in pieces the oppressor." His rulers, in making report 
of their administrations, can say as the Buchanans and Pierces 
have never said, that they " brake the jaws of the wicked, and 
plucked the spoil ou.t of his teeth." He is not your God, who 
would have men vote for candidates who recognize a law for 
slavery. For a law for slavery is a greater and crueller absurd- 
ity than a law for murder. Every right-minded man would see 
his children in the grave rather than in the chains of slavery. 
Daniel knew no other law than " the law of his God." Nor did 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. " Peter and the other 
apostles answered and said: 'We ought to obey God rather 
than men.' " But the God of all these is He whom you 
have chosen to be your God. Cling to Him, and you are safe. 
Cling to Him, and you shall not be washed away, even by the 
high-dashing waves of corrupt politics, which, meeting with no 
resistance in the churches that exalt doctrines above duties, 
strew the land with wrecks at every returning election, and 
prove how vain, in times of temptation, is every other religion 
than the practical religion of Jesus Christ. 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO, Nov. 18th, 1860. 



Another Election has come and gone. Much of good, in 
both its near and remote results, do we look for. JSTevertheless, 
we are not to overlook its many baleful influences, and its 
wide havoc of virtue and happiness. We have again passed 
through the great quadrennial Demoralization, which sinks 
into a lower deep tens of thousands of drunkards ; which turns 
into drunkards tens of thousands of the sober ; which makes 
tens of thousands of new liars, and makes worse tens of thou- 
sands of old ones; which cheapens sincerity and simplicity, 
by putting high prices upon intrigue and dishonesty; which 
puts falsehood for truth and darkness for light, and makes ten 
appeals to passion and prejudice where it makes one to reason. 

"While, however, we af&rm that this is the general character 
of a Presidential Election, we are free to admit that some of 
the actors in it are candid, and some of the influences in it en- 
lightening and elevating. But with all this, and every other 
conceivable alleviation, still who does not see that a Presi- 
dential Election frightfully lowers the standard of morality, 
pours tides of wickedness through all ranks and classes, and 
preys fatally with its rampant vices on numberless bodies and 
numberless souls ? Many and mighty are the influences needed- 
to redeem great popular Elections from the coarseness and 
corruption which characterize them. Preeminent among these 
mfluences is the presence and the part of woman. The con- 
duct and character of men as voters will become far better 
after the advancing stages of civilization shall have brought 
up women to vote by their side. 



104 BIBLE CIVIL GOVEENMENT. 

And where were our cliurcli people in the late Election ? 
The J were voting for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates. 
Nay, some of them were themselves svich candidates. Our 
church people were mixed up with the abominations of the 
Election, and not a few of them were drenched in its corrup- 
tions. 

I turn for a moment from the church people to notice the 
' fact that even the rescuers of slaves did, with very few excep- 
tions, vote for these candidates. In their measureless incon- 
sistency and infatuation they voted power into hands ready to 
use it both for re-seizing the slave and punishing his rescuers. 
Doubtless these inconsistent and infatuated men will still 
wonder that we should refuse to join them in celebrations of 
slave-rescues. 

To return to the church people. It must be confessed that 
thousands of them honestly believed that their candidate would 
be found faithful to all the claims of freedom and righteous- 
ness, and it must also be confessed that, but for this belief, they 
would not have voted for him. Admit, too, will we that thou- 
sands of them voted as they did because they believed the 
Constitution to be for slavery, and thousands because they be- 
lieved the Bible sustains it. 1 believe both to be against it. 
But what if both are for it ? Why, only that both are so far 
void of obligation. The Bible and the Constitution are the 
work of men ; but Freedom is the great gift of the great God. 
Hence, believing, as I do, with " Peter and the other Apostles 
that we ought to obey God rather than man," I must insist 
that all shall go for freedom, however the Constitution and 
the Bible may go. *' The law of his God," or, in other words, 
the law of Justice, was Daniel's law, and it should be every 
man's law, the Constitution and even the Bible to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

Will the church people never believe in the religion of the 
Bible ? They believe in. its theologies and its philosophies, or 
in what are interpreted to be such. Why will they not be- 
lieve in its religion also ? One answer is, that they are sec- 
taries ; that their sects are organized to uphold, some this part 
and s ome that of these theologies and philosophies ; and that 
in this wise religion is in general greatly undervalued, and 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 105 

often quite ignored or lost siglit of. Indeed, fhe mistake be- 
comes almost universal among them^ that these theologies or 
philosophies are themselves religion, or at least a part of iti 
and that their zeal and contention for them have all the merit 
of zeal and contention for religion itself. Another explanation 
is, that whilst the good man alone is willing to be religious, 
these theologies or philosophies are a substitute for religion so 
cheap and easy that the wickedest man finds no cross in adopt- 
ing them. And still another explanation of the refusal of these 
church people to receive the religion of the Bible is, that whilst 
this true religion enters a man's heart through his heaven- 
enlightened and heaven-sanctified reason, they are educated 
to distrust reason in the province of religion, and to receive 
upon authority what passes with them for religion. Much, 
too, might be said to show that religions imposed by authority 
are not only like to differ very widely from the religion which 
a sound understanding and a sound heart make their own, but 
are also peculiarly effective in shutting it out. 

I have spoken of the religion of the Bible as one with the 
true religion. It manifestly is ; and nowhere else is that true 
religion presented so simply, so sublimely, or so perfectly. 
Foolish skepticism rejects the Bible ; credulous and unques- 
tioning superstition gulps it down. But reason — the rea- 
son blest with divine illumination — the reason, coupled with a 
renewed heart — though sitting, as it is bound to do, in stern 
and unsparing, whilst yet in meek and humble judgment, on 
the Bible, and deciding for itself on the popular interpreta- 
tions of it, and on the theological and philosophical structures 
built upon it, comes at last to acknowledge the preeminence 
of its inspirations and the truth of its religion. 

What is the religion of the Bible ? The churches hold that 
it is largely contained in their speculations and theories re- 
specting Trinity, Atonement, Heaven, Hell, etc. But the 
Bible resolves it into love, especially love to the destitute and 
afflicted. It says that " God is love," and that man should be 
also. It says that " Love is the fulfilling of the law," and that 
'' All the law is*fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself" It says that to do justice to the 
poor and needy is to know God. (Jeremiah 22 : 16.) It says 



106 BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

that "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father 
is this : To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, 
and to keep himself unspotted from the world." It says : " Ee- 
member them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them 
which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body." 
It says : " Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, 
and I burn not ?" It says, in short, that the whole of religion 
consists in doing as you would be done by. The churches 
make religion to consist mainly in creeds, but the Bible whoUy 
in deeds, and in the spirit of which they are the necessary out- 
flow. Church religion dreams, bat Bible religion bids us do. 

Nothing in all the Bible, save the life of Jesus, which was 
given to reflect before men the life of the Father, and in which 
the character of God shines out in the character of the God- 
filled Man, is so rich in tenderness and beauty and so power- 
ful in appeals to love and admiration as its portrayal of right- 
eous civil government. Nothing, with that exception, so 
clearly and attractively reveals the genius of the religion of 
the Bible. How little the church people appreciate this re- 
ligion is manifest from their indifference to the Bible view of 
civil government. Altogether welcome to them would be this 
view, and altogether corresponding with it their political 
action, did they but love this religion. 

Civil government is, in the eye of reason, the collective 
people caring for each of the people — the combination of all 
for the protection of each one. Such is it also in spirit and 
scope on the pages of the Bible. We there see it to be, next 
to God himself, the great Protector ; and, as is reasonable, the 
special Protector of the innocent and helpless poor. The Bible 
requires for civil rulers " able men, such as fear God, men of 
truth, hating covetousness ;" men who " shall judge the people 
with just judgment, shall not respect persons, neither take a 
gift;" "shall judge [do justice to] the poor of the people, save 
the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor." 
Of this true and Bible type of civil rulers was Job, who says : 
" I delivered the poor that cried ; and the fatherless and him 
that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was 
ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart 
to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me ; 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 107 

mj judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the 
blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, 
and the cause which I knew not I searched out. And I brake 
the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth." 
I am always pained when I hear Christians praise certain 
persons as great statesmen. Great statesmen they are — not 
because they care for the poor, for they uphold statutes and 
execute decrees for enslaving and crushing the poor — but be- 
cause they have talents and learning, and talk ingeniously and 
eloquently about banks and tariffs and internal improvements^ 
and prate cunningly and winningly of human rights. Were 
these Christians more Christians, they would see more states- 
manship in that noble ruler who " was a father to the poor'' 
than in the sum total of those sham statesmen who are so un- 
wisely and guiltily lauded. 

For the reason that it looks upon the civil ruler as the pro- 
tector of the needy, the Bible says to him : " Open thy mouth 
for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to de- 
struction. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the 
cause of the poor and needy." " Seek judgment, relieve the 
oppressed." " Let the oppressed go free : break every yoke." 
It is for this reason that it pronounces, " Wo unto them that 
decree unrighteous decrees and that write grievousness which 
they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from judgment 
and to take away the right from the poor of my people ;" and 
says : " Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him 
that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor." 

We can not mistake the Bible apprehension of civil govern- 
ment, when it tells us that " rulers are not a terror to good 
works but to the evil ;" nor when it says that the ruler is " the 
minister of God," or, in other words, acts on and acts out the 
principles of God. And who can mistake it, or fail to be 
touched and melted by it, when he reads the injunction upon 
civil government: "Take counsel, execute judgment, make 
thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noon day ; hide 
the outcasts, bewray [betray] not him that wandereth. Let 
mine outcasts dwell with thee ; be thou a covert to them 
from the face of the spoiler." Or who can misapprehend it, 
or not be moved by it, when he reads: "Thou shalt not de- 



108 BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

liver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his 
master nnto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, 
in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where 
it liketh him best : thou shalt not oppress him." 

I need quote no further from the Bible to prove that the civil 
government it commends is the protector of the innocent and 
helpless poor ; nor to prove how widely it contrasts with the 
civil governments of the whole earth, and especially with the 
oppressive and murderous rule which in our own nation 
usurps the name of civil government — a rule so sanctioned by 
the priesthood and upheld by the people, as forcibly to recall 
the prophet's description of a similar conspiracy: "There is 
a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roar- 
ing lion ravening the prey ; they have devoured souls ; they 
have taken the treasure and precious things ; they have made 
her many widows in the midst thereof Her priests have vio- 
lated my law, and have profaned my holy things ; they have 
put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have 
they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, 
and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned 
among them. Her princes ^in the midst thereof are like wolves 
ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get 
dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them with 
untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, 
saying: Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not 
spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and 
exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy : yea, 
they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully." Keed I add 
that the civil government of this land is the devourer, instead 
of the protector, of the poor? and that, while continuing to 
devour them with Land Monopoly and Eum and Slavery, the 
protection it boastingly and lyingly professes and promises is 
no- better than that which the prophet here describes — the pro- 
tection which wolves give to lambs ? 

I have said enough to warrant me in asserting — 
First. That of all the institutions of earth, civil govern- 
ment is unspeakably the most important. 

Second. That religious men only are fit to bear civil rule, 
and that therefore none other should be chosen for it. This 



BIBLE CIVIL GOYERNMENT. ^ 109 

says Eeason, and this says tlie Bible, whose religion is the re- 
ligion of reason. In what sublimely eloquent and command- 
ing language is it said by the Psalmist, when, having reserved 
it for his last, because most important utterance and admoni- 
tion, he exclaims : " The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and 
his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said. The Eock 
of Israel spake to me : He that ruleth over men must be just, 
ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the 
morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds ; 
as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining 
after "rain."- 

Surely none but a religious man can answer to the Psalm- 
ist's description of the civil ruler. Surely none but a religous 
man can have the broad, undeviating justice, the honest, com- 
prehensive care for others, the quick, tender, and thorough 
sympathy with the poor, helpless, and trodden-down, which 
should ever characterize the civil ruler. 

Are not religious better than irreligious men? None can 
doubt it. Why, then, should they not be chosen to fill the 
most important and responsible places in human affairs ? That 
they are not, dishonors religion and sets reason at naught. If 
religious men are needed anywhere, it is in the capacity of 
civil rulers. 

My hearers know what I mean by a religious man, and they 
will not go away saying that I refuse to vote for persons unless 
they belong to the Church. I vote for those who do and for 
those- who do not belong to it. But I aim to vote for religious 
persons only. Believing in the Bible, and accepting its re- 
ligion with my whole head and heart, I am shut up to such 
voting. Other men, and immeasurably better than myself, can 
vote otherwise. But I can not. I can not without severing my 
connection with this Book of books, dishonoring and disown- 
ing my God-given and God-present reason, debauching my 
conscience, and sinking myself into atheism. 

With me a religious man is simply a just man. Show me a 
just man, and you show me a religious one. The more just he 
is the more religious he is. And when, under the new-creat- 
ing influences of Heaven, he has reached the sublime hight of 
doing in all things as he would be done by, then has he ful- 



110 ^ BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

filled tlie claims of justice and religion, of the Bible and rea* 
son, of earth and heaven. Beliefs in regard to the Trinity, 
Atonement, Election, etc., etc., have their value. They may 
favor or hinder religion ; but they are no part of it. 

Say not that my stress on doing ignores faith. Say not that 
I forget the Bible words : " The just shall live by faith." 
Eeadily do I admit that our moral and spiritual nature can not 
live unless it be fed by faith. But in what must this faith be ? 
Must it be, as is generally held, in ecclesiastical dogmas and 
formulas? ISTo; but in justice and goodness. Must it not be 
in Christ ? Not necessarily in the historic Christ ; but it must 
be in the spirit he breathed, the principles he taught, and the 
aims he pursued. In the high and essential sense every man 
has faith in Christ just as far as this spirit, these principles, and 
these aims become his own, and no farther ; or, in other words, 
to the precise extent that he is like Christ. 

And say not that I have omitted from my definition of a re- 
ligious man love to God. No one destitute of this element 
can love his brother as he should do. No one can do this 
without loving God for having made him capable of it. I add 
that every one's love to God is proved and measured by his 
love to man. 

The little handful of uncompromising Abolitionists are 
blamed for refusing to vote at the late Election for this, that, or 
the other party ticket. But there were irreligious men upon 
each — men whose principles and practices proved their dispo- 
sition to wield government for the destruction instead of the 
protection of the people. Men there were upon all these 
tickets, who would license the dram-shop ; that great manufac- 
tory of paupers and madmen; that great slaughter-house oi 
bodies and souls, that great source of peril to the persons and 
propert}'- of the sober, as well as of suffering to the families of 
drunkards ; that great multiplier of our taxes, but for which we 
should pay only shillings to the tax-gatherers where we now 
pay them dollars, and but for which there would be compara- 
ratively little occasion for courts and prisons, and probably none 
at all for poor-houses. Men there were upon all these tickets 
who would replunge into the deep pit of slavery the poor 
trembling ones who have escaped from it ; and who would de- 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVEENMENT. Ill 

grade and dishearten millions of their countrymen by exclud- 
ing them from citizenship and the ballot-box. 

How, then, could we vote for any one of these tickets ? How 
could we do so, and still honor the Bible view of religion and 
civil government? What! vote for men who would worse 
than murder their innocent brothers and sisters by enslaving 
them ? Impossible, without most deeply dishonoring that 
view. I said worse than murder — for who would not rather 
have his child murdered than enslaved ? What ! vote for men 
who would use the power we give them to punish complexion 
with civil and political disabilities ! Surely, we cou.ld not do 
so without outraging all our convictions of what the Bible 
teaches of religion and civil government. All the varieties of 
the human family are equally dear to Him who " hath made 
of one blood all nations of men ;" and if the religion of the 
Bible is both his and ours, then are they equally dear to us 
also. The recent refusal of the majority of the voters of this 
State to restore suffrage to the black man proves that majority 
to be atheists. The contempt which that refusal pours upon 
human nature is wholly incompatible with true religion. A 
man may love himself, and this or that branch of the human 
family ; but unless he love all its branches, he is the guilty 
enemy of human nature, and of the God in whose image it is 
made. 

Some of these Abolitionists are blamed for entertaining, as 
did their sainted brother, James Gr. Birney, so small a hope 
that the voters of our country will bring slavery to a peaceful 
end through the ballot-box. Their little faith in these voters 
is construed into evidence of their want of faith in God. But 
more properly might little faith in such of these voters as love 
to cast pro-slavery and dram-shop votes be construed into 
want of faith in the devil. Our speeches and writings for a 
quarter of a century show that we look for a speedy termina- 
tion of American Slavery. But our growing fear, in the light 
of our growing knowledge of American voters, is, that the ter- 
mination will be violent instead of peaceful. It will come in 
some way in God's providence, and it will come soon. But to 
say that, because we doubt its coming in the bloodless and de- 
sired way, we doubt his providence, and have a reduced faith 
in himself, is to do -us a groundless and a great wrong. 



112 BIBLE CIVIL GOVEENMENT. 

It is very true that our hope of seeing slavery voted to death 
is small. This is as true as that the facts in the case forbid it 
to be large. And if I may be allowed to speak for some 
of these Abolitionists, I will add that not only do they appre- 
hend that a people who receive their religion upon authority* 
instead of understandingly, will be found inadequate to the 
task of putting away peaceably a system of slavery so inwov- 
en as is ours with political, ecclesiastical, commercial, social 
interests, but inadequate also to the maintenance of democratic 
institutions. The religions of the world being authority-re- 
ligions, harmonize with monarchies and despotisms. If peoples 
who are swayed by them call for democratic forms of govern- 
ment, then do they call for what is far above them — for what 
they are not yet educated to meet the cost of. Were the Ital- 
ians now to put away their authority-religion, and now to as- 
sert their right to judge for themselves as freely of every page 
in the Bible as of every page in any other book, and as freely 
of every proceeding in the Church as of every proceeding in 
any other association, it would not be strange if, fifty years 
hence, that happily delivered people should look out from the 
midst of their flourishing democratic institutions upon the ruin 
of ours. 

Some of these Abolitionists hold that the North is particeps 
criminis in American Slavery, and should therefore consent to 
share with the South in the present loss of emancipation. 
They hold that here is a case for applying the motto : " Honor 
among thieves." Now, to charge them, therefore, with recog- 
nizing the right of property in man is as unjust as to deduce 
from their lack of faith in American voters their lack of faith 
in God. But these Abolitionists would buy the slaves! — all. 
the slaves ! Well, let it pass for huying. And, pray, do not 
their accusers sometimes help huy a slave ? Oh ! yes — but 
they have never undertaken to buy all the slaves ! Neverthe- 
less, does not what they themselves do estop them from com- 
plaining of the morality of this undertaking? Moreover, 
would not all their accusers consent to be bought out of slave- 
ry were they to fall under its heavy yoke ? If they would, 
then let them first become so self-crucifying as to be able to 
reduce to practice in their own case that sublime morality by 
which they presume to try and condemn others. 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. lleS 

ISTo less is the injustice done to sucTi of these Abolitionists as 
are charged with consenting to have the governmental action, 
which shall attend the annexation to each other of nations, or 
parts of nations, include the sanction and upholding of slavery. 
With their broad democracy and their immeasurably greater 
account of the natural rights of people than of the conventional 
claims of Government, they can not consistently withstand the 
desire of two peoples (bond and free, male and female included) 
to cast in their lot together. They can not withstand it, even 
though the conspirators, who have usurped the name and au- 
thority of Civil Government, enact theft, slavery, murder, or 
whatever else, as the conspirators' terms of the blending. 
Does it follow, however, from such enactments, that these 
Abolitionists recognize these conspirators as Civil Govern- 
ment ? Not at all. They do, in fact, recognize as Civil Gov- 
ernment that only which administers the law of God. Such 
Governments as do not administer it, and especially the pro- 
slavery governments of this country, are in their eyes but pi- 
racies. Or does it follow that the Abolitionists of whom we 
are speaking consent to, or are in any wise responsible for, the 
man-crushing and God-defying terms on which these conspira- 
tors condition the blending ? Certainly not. No more does it 
follow that they would have the consociating peoples consent 
to or be responsible for them. 

Moreover, if these Abolitionists believe that the slaves of 
Cuba and of the United States wisely desire to bring their sad 
fortunes together, and their desolate hearts together into one 
nation, or that they would desire it if they knew their true in- 
terests, and would do so even if the parties who hold the reins 
of power should seek to turn to the advantage of slavery such 
bringing together — then these Abolitionists should not only 
not withstand the desire, but should promote its realization. 
They should themselves speak for these " poor, poor dumb 
mouths," and should feel not the least responsibility for the 
unrighteousness which others may succeed in coupling with 
the longed-for annexation. 

Nor less is the injustice of classing with '^ disunionists" 
those Abolitionists, who, opposing by all moral and political 
influences the secession of States from the Union, would nev- 



114 BIBLE CIVIL GOVEENMENT. 

ertheless not have the seceders pursued with armies. Those 
Abolitionists believe in love rather than in hatred ; and hence 
fchej would be more disposed to bless than to curse the seceders ; 
to protect them rather than to shed their blood. For my own 
part, I still feel on this subject as I felt half a dozen years ago? 
when I said on the floor of Congress: "If they will go, let 
them go, and we, though loving the Union, and every part of 
it, and willing to lose no part, will let them go in peace, and 
follow them with our blessing, and with our warm prayer that 
they may return to us, and with our firm belief that they will 
return to us after they shall have spent a few miserable years, 
or perhaps no more than a few miserable months in their mis- 
erable experiment of separating themselves from their brethren. 
Of course I can not forget that many — alas ! that they are so 
many — would prefer following the seceders with curses and 
guns. Oh ! how slow are men to emerge from the brutehood 
into which their passions and their false education have sunk 
them ! I say brutehood, for rage and violence and war belong- 
to it, while love and gentleness and peace are the adornments 
of true manhood." 

What will be the spirit of the ISTorth toward the seceding 
States, bids fair to be soon proved. It is even probable that 
the Slave States will secede — a part now and nearly all the 
remainder soon. This will not be because of the election of 
Lincoln. That is at the most an occasion or pretext for seces- 
sion. Nor will this be because it has long been resolved on. 
There is something, but not so much, in that. It will be be- 
cause their " iniquity — is full," and the time for their destruc- 
tion at hand. During the last few years the South has been 
busy in leaving nothing to add to her iniquity. I speak not 
so much of her reopening the African slave-trade, nor of her 
increasingly tenacious grasp of her slaves as of her purpose to 
banish what she can of her long-tortured free colored people, 
and reenslave the rest. This crowning iniquity ripens her for 
ruin. It ripens her for secession, which is ruin. Maryland, 
having refused to be guilty of this crowning iniquity, will, we 
trust, be saved from the fate of secession. Missouri means to 
be a Free State, and Delaware is already substantially one. 
Hence they wiU not secede. 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVEENMENT, 115 

The South wonld know herself to be hurrying on to destruc 
tion were she not blind to the lessons of history and deaf to the 
voice of Providence. She ought to know it if but from the 
fate of the oppressors of Hayti. They were not slaughtered 
until they undertook to reenslave the free ■ — ■ and then they were. 

Divine Providence has its course in the Southern States as 
well as elsewhere; and there as well as elsewhere, both the 
wickedness and righteousness of men contribute to shape that 
course. In the words of a precious Moravian hymn : 

"He everywhere hath rule, 
And all things serve his might." 

God did not fail to hear the piercing cry sent up a few 
months ago by the exiles of Arkansas. His tender heart 
pitied the poor ones driven out about the same time from the 
State of Louisiana. He witnesses the atrocious cruelties which 
South- Carolina heaps upon her free colored people, and follows 
them in their flight from their oppressors. And all this, we 
may feel assured, goes to "serve his might" and to shape his 
providence. 

I spoke of the secession as ruin. It will be only a present 
ruin, however. It will result in a glorious renovation. The 
seceding States will return to us, not to be Slave States again 
but to be Free States ; not again to oppress the poor, but cor- 
dially and practically to acknowledge the equal rights of all ; 
not again to disgrace America, and hinder the spread of De- 
mocracy over the earth, but to honor the one and extend the 
other ; not again to be a heavy curse, but to be a rich blessing 
to mankind. 

But we pass on, to speak of another injustice. It is that of 
denouncing as enemies of the Bible those of us who believe 
there are a few errors in it, and of denouncing, as guilty of 
setting their reason above the word of God, those of us who 
would let their reason inquire what is and what is not the 
word of God. 

There is a child who deeply loves and honors his mother ; 
but he confesses that the few pimples or moles upon her face 
are blemishes, slight indeed, but still blemishes upon her beauty. 
Is it to the shame and discredit of his fihal piety that he makes 



116 BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

tliis confession ? Even if it is, it does not become such of her 
cliildren to say so, as disgrace her, and break her heart 'hy 
their flagrant disobedience, and make no other atonement than 
their hollow ascription of entire perfection to her. 

It is argued that reason, having once decided that the whole 
Bible, and nothing else, is the word of God, is bound to rest 
there. This is sound argument. But is it bound to rest there 
always? By no means. Reason must ever be left free to re- 
vise and repeal its own decisions, and to deny to a verse to-day 
the inspiration it admitted yesterday. When I was young, my 
reason (if reason it was) accepted the statement that God- or- 
dered the Jews to plunge into bloody wars, and to torture in- 
nocent women and children. But now it does not, and does 
not because it has, as I believe, become more enlightened. It 
now refuses to regard the loving Father as an arbitrary, re- 
vengeful, bloody, pagan deitj^. 

Good and wise men (and I admit that both this age and 
former ages are on their side) call on us to abandon our claim 
for the ceaseless free play of reason upon the pages of the Bible. 
So, too, did the ages call on Galileo to abandon his belief that 
the world moves. But Galileo has come to be justified ; and 
so also will they who, in opposition to the world — both the 
present and the past world — claim that even the Bible itself 
does never, at any period of his life, fall without the jurisdic- 
tion of any man's reason. There is great astonishment that 
the Church so dreaded the influence of astronomy upon the 
Bible ; but there will be greater that it so dreaded the influ- 
ence of reason upon it. The dread in both cases is explained 
by its foolishly regarding a book instead of Nature as absolute 
authority, and the Divine inspiration of every page in it as a 
fact' no more to be questioned than the existence of the sun. 

We admit that we can not honestly deny that we make our 
reason final arbiter in all our investigations — even our investi- 
gations of the Bible. We dare not hold it in abeyance, nor 
disclaim its supremacy even there. At all times and in all 
places we must let it decide what is the word of God. If Dr- 
Cheever makes it turn supremely and finally upon the Bible 
whether immortal man can be rightfnlly enslaved, or, in oth- 
er words, rightfully reduced to brutehood and merchandise, 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 117 

we can not go with him in that. We must there diverge from 
this dear and noble man of God. "We can not leave it to the 
interpretation of any words whether a hog is a hog, a horse a 
horse, or a man a man. Whatever words may say to the contra- 
ry, we must, in all circumstances, treat each according to its 
nature. So should every thing be treated, and what is its na- 
ture should be learned (because there it can be more surely 
learned) from itself rather than from any, even the best ac- 
count of itself. The world admits that Shakspeare is a won- 
derfully deep and accurate reader of human nature. But it 
admits this because Shakspeare agrees with its own observa- 
tions of human nature. Does it test man by Shakspeare's 
knowledge of him? Far more does it test Shakspeare by its 
own knowledge of man. And so, likewise, instead of making 
the Bible either the exclusive or the conclusive expounder of 
man, the Bible reading of him is also to be judged of by our 
own observations of him. 

This leaving it to words whether slavery is right or wrong 
accounts for the sad fact that the church people South are all 
pro-slavery, and that a large share of them North are also. 
Dr. Cheever found the like in his recent travels in Switzer- 
land — the church people in favor of slavery, because they 
read the Bible to be in favor of it. Lamentable effect, we ad- 
mit, of their misinterpretation of this precious book ! but far 
more lamentable effect of the ecclesiastical requirement to turn 
from man to a book in order to learn what he is and what are 
his rights ! Possibly Dr. Cheever himself may yet become 
pro-slavery. Should he wake np some morning with the con- 
viction that there are words in the Bible on the side of slavery, 
he would either have to renounce the authority of the Bible, 
or have to become pro-slavery. I do not doubt that he would 
renounce it, even though he should see that he would thereby 
make himself as odious as I, by doing so, have made myself 

Jesus saw that men were enslaved to authority, and that 
their own experience of truth could alone set them free. He 
took np men out of their bondage to superstitions, and out 
of their debasing and blinding submission to authority, and 
threw them back upon their own consciences and convictions, 
and demanded that they should judge for themselves, yes, and 



118 BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

of tlieinselves, what is riglit Thus to individuahze and ia- 
sulate each man was his first step toward getting each man 
right. 

The question which Jesus puts to the slaveholder is not 
"What does the Church or the Bible think of slavery?" but 
it is : "What think you of it — you yourself P "What think 
you of it in the light of human nature — of that high nature 
it tramples under foot — whose holy affections it outrages — 
whose sweet hopes and loves it mocks — whose sublime aspira- 
tions it chokes and kills — and of all whose rich and glorious 
relations to earth and heaven, to. time and eternity, it makes 
no account ?" " What think you of it in the light of the gold- 
en rule, to do as you would be done by?" " What think you 
of slavery as a condition for yourself — as a yoke upon your 
own neck, by however solemn enactments imposed, or however 
poor and helpless you were at the time of the imposition?" 
" What think you of it for your children — for even the dullest 
of them, and for those least able to take care of themselves ?" 
In a word : "What think you of slavery, when you try it by 
that self- application mode of reasoning which Jesus taught ?" 
Could you pin the slaveholder to such questions ; could you 
prevent his escape from the tribunal of his own conscience, he 
would soon cease to be a slaveholder. But, unhappily, the 
Church has taught him how to evade the pressure of your ques- 
tions and of his conscience. He finds shelter in an authorita- 
tive religion, and is relieved of the necessity of self-arraign- 
ment. 

This self-application mode of reasoning, when faithfully 
wielded, makes the problem simple and the duties plain. The 
Presidential candidates in the late Election would send other 
people's children into slavery. But would they send their 
own, even if pressed to it by ten thousand Constitutions and 
ten thousand statutes, and ten thousand judicial decrees, ay, 
and ten thousand Bibles also ? My neighbors voted for them. 
But would they have done so had it been my neigh- 
bors' children, whom these candidates proposed to send into 
slavery ? 

The sincere and self-sacrificing John Brown wa^s adjudged 
worthy of death because he would put weapons into the hands 



BIBLE CIVIL GOVEKNMENT. 119 

of slaves wherewith to defend themselves in their flight from 
slavery. But would not his judges, ay, and the famous 
Harper's Ferry Committee also, were they in slavery, welcome 
such a service ? Such are my own ethics and education that I 
had rather live and die in slavery than shed blood to escape 
from it. But had they ? 

The work Dr. Cheever has chosen for himself is to persuade 
the Swiss, the Americans, and the world, that the Bible is 
against slavery. But far more important, far more hopeful^ 
and far shorter would be his work, were it to convince them 
that, say what the Bible may, slavery is wrong ; and to con- 
vince them of it by carrying them straight to man, and de- 
manding their solution of the problem amid the influences shed 
upon them by that august and godlike presence. It is when 
pervaded by these influences — the solemn influences of the 
Qiost holy and glorious of all earthly temples — the temple of 
man — that we feel how exceedingly poor, compared with its 
real authority — the authority of Grod in man — is that which is 
so falsely claimed for traditions, books, and churches. 

Dr. Cheever sees no hope for freedom, if the Bible shall be 
given to the side of slavery. But I see no hope for the Bible 
if it shall be proved to be for slavery. Slavery is not to be 
tried by the Bible, but the Bible by freedom. All this talk 
that the Bible is the charter of man's rights is nonsense. His 
nature is that charter ; and his rights are the rights of his na. 
ture — 'Uo more nor less — every book to the contrary notwith- 
standing. The nature of a monkey determines its rights. The 
nature of a man his. 

Nothing can be more degrading to the high nature God has 
given us than to argue that its rights stand in a book, and that 
we need run to it to learn whether we may or may not get 
drunk, commit theft, murder, or enslave men. No book 
points out men's crimes so clearly, or protests against them 
so strongly as their own nature ; and if they turn away from 
the best teacher, under the plea of hearing a better, they will, 
in the end, be apt to hear neither. There is no safety for us 
any farther than we respond to the utterances of our being. 
We may, and we should, study that being in the light of the 
Bible and of all other lights at our command. Nevertheless, 



120 BIBLE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

it is that which we are to study. We may, and we should, 
have respect to the wise judgments which abound both within 
and without the Bible. Nevertheless, the final and decisive 
judgment is that which we are ourselves to form. We are 
never, nor in the least, to doubt our capacity to judge rightly 
in regard to every thing which enters into the essence of reli- 
gion — every such thing being entirely plain and simple. Were 
it not so, Jesus would not have said to the people : " And why 
judge ye not even of yourselves what is right?" 

But it will be long, very long, ere the people are weaned 
from depending on book-interpreters for their religion, and 
are brought to study it for themselves in nature. The educa- 
tion of the age has served to enslave men to authority ; and 
an authority-religion is therefore just what their education 
calls for. They must not presume to go to the plain volume of 
nature for their religion. But, with blind faith in others, and 
boundless submission to authority, they must receive for reli- 
gion what the churches, who quarrel among themselves as to 
the meanings of a book, tell them is the religion of that 
book. • 

' I close my discourse abruptly, to the end that the congrega- 
tion may have the more time for reviewing it. Happy usage 
this, of having the church and congregation resolve themselves 
in the afternoon into a conference for reviewing the discourse 
they have heard in the morning. Not a little of its marked 
knowledge of the true religion does Peterboro owe to this 
usage. 

Although the mass of the voters at the late Election were 
for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates; and although 
they who sternly refused to vote for men in favor of licensing 
the dram-shop, or for men who know as law any form of piracy, 
and least of all the superlative piracy of slavery, were but a 
very little handful, nevertheless we are not to be discouraged. 
This very little handful, even though it shall never increase, will 
not fail to exert a growing influence for Freedom, truth, and 
righteousness. But it may increase rapidly — ay, under the 
Divine blessing, even triumphantly. Like the "handful of 
corn on the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof may yet 
shake like Lebanon." 



ON MIRACLES. 

DISCOURSE m PETERBORO, April 14th, 1861, 



Have tliere ever been miracles ? By wMcli I mean, have 
the laws of Nature ever been suspended ? Neither the observ- 
ations and computations of astronomers nor the explorations 
of geologists detect such suspension. "All things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the creation." As yet, it 
holds true that, "While the earth remaineth, seed-time and 
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day 
and night shall not cease." 

Whatever the good that might come of miracles, certain it 
is that immeasurable evil would also come of them. Men 
would no longer know what to rely on in either the physical 
or the moral world — in the character of nature or the char- 
acter of God. That with God "is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning," and that like his Son, who reflects him, 
he is " the same yesterday and to-day and forever," is taught 
more largely and surely by the unchanging operations of his 
laws than elsewhere. What sCn appalling and withering un- 
certainty miracles would send throughout the realms of natural 
science! Quite discouraged would be the geologists and as- 
tronomers, and quickly would they abandon their enterprises, 
should they come to fear change in those operations. Unhappy 
would be the effect upon the navigator, the farmer, the me- 
chanic, the physician, and indeed upon whom not ? 

But, you will say, that miracles are too infrequent for such 
disastrous consequences. You are, with few exceptions, Pro- 
testants ; and you will say, that the sole object of miracles is 
the authentication of Christianity. Na}^, you will say, tha1i 



122 • MIEACLES. 

there have been none for the last eighteen centuries, and that 
there never will be any more. 

Even, however, if miracles are to this end only, they can not 
be so infrequent as you suppose. The conditions of belief in 
one age may differ very widely from those in another ; and so, 
also, in one country from those in another. What to the Jews 
were miracles, might not to the English wear the least sem- 
blance of them. So common were they in Judea, that their 
being miracles was not at all in the way of their being believed. 
But a great change must be wrought in the English mind be- 
fore it can be brought so far as even to listen to testimony in 
behalf of present miracles. Deep-rooted preconceptions are to 
be removed, and life-long habits of thought to be overcome ere 
the way will be clear to hear witnesses. Hence, though there 
may still linger so much superstition and religious prejudice 
in the English mind as to make it still acquiesce in old Jewish 
miracles, it remains true that Jewish testimony can not prove 
them to that mind. What to the Jew of two thousand years 
ago might have been entirely convincing evidence of a miracle, 
might to the modern Englishman be but illegitimate and inad- 
missible evidence. The ancient Jew is no more capable of 
bringing proof on this subject to the modern Englishman than 
children are of proving to their parents the truth of children's 
marvelous stories. If then, the miraculous authentication of 
Christianity is needed, there should be miracles to this end in 
England as well as in Judea — miracles within sight of English 
eyes and within hearing of English ears. Jewish testimony of 
miracles, however honest the observation of them, and how- 
ever honest the transmitted record of them, can not sufQ.ce to 
overcome all incredulity outside of Judea. 

It follows then, in the light of what has been said, that if 
miracles are a needed proof of Christianity they must be more 
frequent than you believe them to be. They must be needed 
in this age and that, all along down the track of time ; in this 
and that country, all over the world's surface. 

Again, God is impartial. The salvation of one people is (all 
foolish, selfish, sinful Hebrew superstitions to the contrary not- 
withstanding) as dear to him as that of another. Hence, if he 
would vouchsafe miracles to one people for the purpose of as- 



MIRACLES. 123 

suring tliem that their religion is true, he would vouchsafe 
them to another people as the means of convincing them that 
their religion is false. The one would be as needful as the 
other. The Hindus are in as much need of miracles to per- 
suade them that their religion is false as were the Jews to per- 
suade them that Christianity was true. 

Evidently, then, my neighbors, you are bound by fair logic 
either to give up your faith in all miracles, or to admit that 
they are so frequent as to forbid reliance upon the unvarying 
character and operation of the laws of nature. 

But you feel that you can not possibly cease to credit the 
miracles which are historically connected with your religion. 
Kemember, however, that they are no part of it, and that its 
truth does not make them true. Your faith in them, to be 
justified, must have a basis quite independent of that of your 
religious faith. You must neither assume nor infer them to 
be true. You must have clear and direct proof of them, or 
you must reject them. Is there enough of such proof to carry 
conviction to an enlightened and unbiased mind? I think 
there is not. Of the numberless educated and good men, 
whether Protestants or Catholics, who believe in miracles, I 
do not think there is one who could believe in them, but for 
their being identified in his apprehensions with his religion. 
Such identification makes them sacred to him. He feels no 
need of their being proved to him, and to every disproof of 
them he is impervious and blind. 

We proceed to inquire why it is that, as a general proposi- 
tion, and indeed in every case save this in which the miracle^ 
are associated with the cherished religion, sound and cultivated 
men refuse their credence to them. It is because their observa- 
tion and experience of the constancy and certainty of natu- 
ral laws are too conclusive to be shaken by even the utmost 
accumulations of human testimony. Never have they seen in- 
constancy and uncertainty in these laws. But the fallibility 
of human testimony they have seen every day. 

It turns not simply nor even mainly upon the words of the 
witnesses whether we believe or disbelieve in the alleged 
events. Much more depends ujDon the antecedent state and 
habits of our minds — upon our educated preparation to believe 



124 MIRACLES. 

or disbelieve — than upon the words, or number, or general cred- 
ibility of the witnesses. -I read that a man has died. Why 
I believe it so unhesitatingly, is chiefly because death is not 
only a possible and probable, but a very common actual event. 
News comes that a child is born with two heads and four arms 
and four legs. We disbelieve it. But when thousands of cred- 
ible persons assure us that they have seen the prodigy, our 
disbelief can hold out no longer. It is, however, still more by 
force of our previous observation, experience, convictions, or, 
in one word, education, than of these numerous witnesses, that 
we are enabled to believe. We knew before that some per- 
sons were born deficient in members, and some with too many ; 
and hence we were prepared to listen to testimony in behalf 
of this astonishing and at first incredible phenomenon. But 
had the news been that an infant was seen to enter the world 
without a mother, then, and even though millions had testified 
to their personal and certain knowledge of the event, we 
should (always provided that our religion did not call for faith 
in it) have from first to last refused to believe in the event. 
For there is nothing in our previous knowledge and training 
to help, but on the contrary, every thing to prevent our believ- 
ing in it. However entire our faith in the honesty and intelli- 
gence of the witnesses, we nevertheless could not believe in it. 
Nay, we would in such case discredit the report, and impeach 
the trustworthiness of even our own senses ; for while, on the 
one hand, our eyes, ears, and hands have often deceived us, and 
we have known the senses of the .most wary to be the subjects 
of illusions, we have, on the other, never known the least falter- 
ing in the laws of nature. In other words, we have never 
known a miracle. A however greatly deformed child is but a 
lusus naturce — not a natural impossibility — not a miracle. 
But a child without a birth — a birth without a mother — that is 
a natural impossibility — that is a miracle. 

You admit that there is but one reason for miracles, and this 
is, that the Christian religion may be thereby authenticated. 
But is there even this reason ? Can there be miracles even to 
this one end ? Eeligion consists in nothing more nor less than 
the knowledge and observance of the laws of nature. Hence, 
to make her laws uncertain is to make her rehgion uncertain. 



MIRACLES. 125 

To make the laws of nature uncertain, is to deprive mankind 
of their great and sure religious teacher. Miracles, then, 
might serve to unsettle and destroy, but not to establish reli- 
gion ; and therefore they will never be among the expedients 
of the Supreme Wisdom for establishing it. 

I persist in my definition of religion. The man who beyond 
all others treats Grod and man and all beings according to the 
nature of each, is religious beyond all others. If human na- 
ture in the slave calls not for a contrary treatment, then is the 
slaveholder right in withholding from him knowledge, wages, 
wife, child, self; and so far, he is more religious than the abo- 
litionist. If the nature of men requires their frequentin'g the 
dram-shop, then keeping a dram-shop shows more religion than 
being a temperance man. If his nature calls for it, then is the 
daily beating and bruising of the horse religious. Only fall in 
with all the claims of nature, and you will then fall in with all 
the claims of religion. 

That miracles are not needed to open men's minds and 
hearts to religious truth, and that, therefore, none are wrought 
to this end, is manifest from the fact that they can not serve 
this end. They can not be believed. It is true that even cul- 
tivated men are inconsiderate enough to allow miracles to pass 
for a part of their religion. But this is believing in the reli- 
gion rather than in the miracles coupled with it ; and miracles 
are worthless unless this order be inverted, and the religion be 
believed in because of the belief in them. Moreover, it is ap- 
preciation of the truth that can alone serve the purpose 
claimed for miracles. If this be lacking, no miracle can sup- 
ply the lack. " If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." 
It is the hearing of the truth and not the hearing or seeing of 
a miracle, which produces conviction of the truth. Our 
maker has adapted us to the truth. This adaptation he has 
left us free to honor or despise ; and this freedom he will not 
overrule with miracles. The moral constitution he has given 
us he will not dishonor by such overruling. Both our glory 
and his own require him to hold it to its high responsibili- 
ties; and therefore the sinking of it from its free choices to 
the necessities of a machine can never be his policy. 



126 MIRACLES. 

It is said that if miracles do not convince of truth, they are 
nevertheless useful to call attention to it. But life abounds 
in events far better adapted to this service than miracles could 
be. The death of our husband, wife, phild ; our prostration 
by sickness ; our sudden reduction from riches to poverty — if 
they have not as much power as miracles to astonish, have 
nevertheless far more to call attention to religious truth. Not 
only has God given us a nature fitted to the impressions and 
sway of truth, but such is the course of his providence, that 
it need not be disturbed and broken by miracles in order to 
add to the already sufficient number of awakening and solem- 
nizing occurrences. 

By our moral sense and not by miracles we are to decide 
what is moral truth. What commends itself as such to that 
sense we are to receive. What does not — and even though it 
be backed by the most stupendous miracle — we are to reject. 
Paul bids us abide in our convictions even against the preach- 
ing of "an angel from heaven." A miracle is reduced to a 
very cheap thing, if we are to acknowledge its value only 
when and so far as it harmonizes with our previous convic- 
tions. Again, does not Paul quite exclude the necessity of 
miracles in what he says to the Corinthians of the competency 
of the spiritual mind to know and judge ? 

• I do not forget that the coming of man into the world has 
been called a miracle, and a change of the laws of nature. 
But may not such coming have been the result of laws as 
old as any other of the laws of nature? If Darwin's theory 
of "the origin of species by natural selection" should be held 
to be in its application to man entirely fanciful, nevertheless 
is it not conceivable that God might in some other way pro- 
duce man from the original and eternal laws of nature ? But 
the coming of man into the world was so late ! Not there- 
fore the less probable is it that he did come from such opera- 
tion. Moreover, who of us knows that man is a recent inhab- 
itant of earth? Late geological discoveries in France and 
England of what must have been the work of no less than 
human hands carry the existence of man very far back of the 
date given to Adam and Eve. 

I need say no more to show that the Christian miracles as 



MIRACLES. 127 

well as the miracles of other religions are neither proved nor 
capable of being proved. They may not be the coinage of 
craft and cunning. The love of the marvelons, and the cre- 
dulity of superstition, may chiefly account for them. 

But it is held, that not to believe in miracles is not to believe 
in the Bible. We believe, however, in other ancient histories, 
notwithstanding our disbelief of their miracles. Why, then, 
should our disbelief of the miracles of the Bible be construed 
into disbelief of the histories of the Bible? Moreover, the 
pecuhar and chief value of the Bible is not only aside from its 
miracles, but from most of its narratives, and from very many 
of its pages. Its precious sentiments, its pure and profound 
philosophy, its sublime moralities, its " commandments exceed- 
ing broad," which many of its writers and speakers were in- 
spired to utter with a more impressive and soul-reaching elo- 
quence than belongs to any other inspiration — -these are what 
give its preeminence to the Bible. Nay, these are the Bible ; 
and these are what justify me in still saying as I have been 
wont to do : "The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but 
the Bible." The religion of the Bible is the true religion. 
Men need no other, and they need the whole of it. Far am I 
from claiming exclusive inspiration for these writers and 
speakers. The Common Father is impartial. The influences 
of his Spirit are free to men of all ages and nations. But 
these speakers and writers got nearer to God, and knew more 
of him than did others. Not content with striking the 
streams, they traveled up them to the fountains, and slaked 
their holy thirst ere yet the divine waters had begun lo 
flow down through human impurities. No other writers and 
speakers seem to have escaped so far from the sphere of hu- 
man uncertainties — none to have entered so far into the 
sphere of divine certainties. No other voices of earth sound 
so much like voices of heaven. 

It is also held, that not to believe in miracles is not to be- 
lieve in Christ. But why should it be so held ? Substantially 
the same miracles are told of the conception and birth of 
Plato, who lived hundreds of years before Christ, as arc told 
of the conception and birth of Christ. Nevertheless, our 
making no account of these marvels in the case of Plato does 



128 MIRACLES. 

not cause us to make no account, nor even any less account, 
of Plato himself. Miracles are coupled with the names, with 
the birth, deeds, and death of many ancient philosophers and 
heroes. But o-ur rejection of the miracles involves not the re- 
jection of the men. And what if we do believe that the ori- 
ginal attribution of miracles to Christ was crafty or supersti- 
tious, and that, therefore, instead of beiug sanctioned, it should 
be set aside? Nevertheless Christ is not thereby set aside. 
He still remains; and he remains the same great Teacher and 
Example, and therein the same great Saviour. He still real- 
izes our highest conceptions of God's moral character, and 
therein is lie still " God manifest in the flesh." 

Miracles and magic go together. Hence they who believe 
that they are saved by what Christ has done, rather than by what 
his spirit — the spirit which filled him both in life and death — 
has led them to do, will naturally cling to miracles. Thej^ 
will feel that to give them up is to give up Christ, and to give 
up the magic salvation which they expect at his hands. But 
they who take no interest in the question, whether Christ's 
mother was born sinful or sinless ; and but little interest in the 
questions how, when, where he was born, and who believe that 
he saves men from the penalty of no other sins than those 
which his spirit saves them from committing; and who be- 
lieve that all they have to do with him is to grow, and bring 
others to grow, in love and likeness to him — they will as natu- 
rally be undisturbed by the conclusion that the miracles con- 
nected with his birth, life, and death are mere fictions. 

Let me do injustice to none. Tens of thousands believe in 
the miracles, aod also in that view of the atonement which I 
have disfavored, who not only believe in following Christ, but 
who set that duty far above all dogmas. The best and the 
worst men believe in the miracles, the Trinity, and in that 
view of the atonement. The best and the worst men are or- 
thodox ; and the best and the worst men are heterodox. Prac- 
tical religion only — lived-out goodness only — that alone is the 
test ; that alone puts all the good on one side, and all the bad 
on the other. 

I have glanced at the arguments for believing in miracles. 
I will now pass on to the great need of their being disbelieved. 



MIRACLES. 129 

Formerly I thouglit it not very important whether they were 
believed or disbelieved. But of late years I have reached the 
conclusion, that scarcely any thing is more important than 
chat they be disbelieved. Book-religion may justly be re- 
garded as the ' greatest evil in the world. It will, however. 
Last as long as miracles are believ.ed in — they being recorded 
with it, and regarded as a part of it. Herein, then, is the great 
need of the rejection of miracles. ISTevertheless, who will live 
long enough to witness the rejection ? It is the union with 
each other of miracles and a book-religion which serves to 
make each well-nigh invincible. The miracles admitted, and 
the religion is held to be true ; the religion admitted, and the 
miracles are held to be true. 

One of the necessities growing out of a book-religion is a 
priesthood — that frightful enemy of manhood. The mission 
of the book-religion priest is to unman himself and his people ; 
to make a book- war upon human nature and all nature ; and 
to displace the real God by a conventional and book-God. 
His people get their religion at second-hand, and it is what 
the priesthood have prepared for them. For, if they are al- 
lowed to read the sacred book, it is only in the light of priestly 
interpretations, and with no liberty to depart from priestly 
conclusions. Its religion is held to be wrapped up in mys- 
teries, which priestly learning is alone adequate to unfold — to 
be a cabalistic science, which sacerdotal skill can alone deci- 
pher. I should have called this popular religion a third-hand 
one, since no book-religion can rise any higher than a second- 
hand one — any higher than a record of the religious utterances 
of nature. 

Am I asked whether I am opposed to all priests ? I am. 
What, even to priests of the type of Henry Ward Beecher? 
There are no priests of that type. Mr. Beecher is not a priest — 
he is a man. His soul is manly, and his preaching is manly. 
He is not the servant of the book ; the book is his servant. 
He preaches from current life to current life ; from nature to 
nature ; from all nature and the God who fills all nature, to 
human nature. He does indeed love the Bible; and how 
could such a man fail to love such a book ? He preaches iu 
views of God and man. But he does so because his reason 



130 MIRACLES. 

commends them to him as the richest and truest views of God 
and man which human hearts have ever conceived or human 
hands ever recorded. Should he find, as he never will, passages 
in that book favoring slavery or intemperance, he would in no 
wise be trammeled by them. He would still go- with nature 
and religion, and against these enemies of both. But Mr. 
Beecher has speculative views of Christ dijBfering from yours 
and mine ! That may be. Still, as he subscribes with us to 
Christ's practical religion of doing as we would be done by, 
we can be very tolerant of such speculative views. 

I mentioned Mr. Beecher not to eulogize him, but simply to 
illustrate an unpriestly preacher. I could find fault even with 
Mr. Beecher. The great and good Theodore Parker was al- 
most disposed to welcome infirmities, not to ' say sins, in 
Washington, on the ground that they served as points and ties 
of sympathy between him and his fellow-men, and to retain 
within the sphere of humanity this seemingly superhuman 
saviour of his country. Mr. Beecher does, now and then, 
slide down into expediency ; and now and then make conces- 
sions to a great wrong. I will not deny that he does by this 
means help keep himself in sympathy with the masses — help 
retain his hold upon them — and help preserve a wide field in 
which to wield his rich and exhaustless eloquence. Yet I 
must believe that Grod is never honored, nor mankind ever 
benefited, by any inconsistency, whether in Washington or 
Beecher, or any one else, with the stern law of absolute 
rectitude. 

It is not to get rid of preaching that we would have the priest- 
hood abolished. Its abolition, which will be simultaneous with 
that of the book-religion, will make room for multitudes of 
preachers, such preachers as the world needs, preachers of na- 
ture, and reason, and righteousness. 

One of the great evils of book-religion is its forbidding prog- 
ress in religion. Is the book a thousand years old ? then is it 
mighty to hold back the human mind to a period a thou- 
sand years ago; and if three thousand, then to a period 
three thousand years ago. The believers in the Koran, in the 
Vedas, and in the sacred books of China, are at the present 
time religiously, and therefore intellectually and otherwise 



MIKACLES. 131 

where they have been for many, many ages. The same is 
true of the tribes which are bound and imprisoned by tradition- 
ary religions — the effect of such religions being in this respect 
the same as that of the written religions. How sadly do the 
condition and character of the Mohammedans, Hindoos, and 
Chinese illustrate the cramping and crushing influences of a 
book-fastened, stereotyped, stationary religion! Happy for 
Christendom that her sacred book is incomparably better than 
the sacred books of other parts of the world ! For, in spite of 
the false and narrow interpretations put upon it by the priest- 
hood, there has been great progress in Christendom. Yet how 
little this progress, compared with what it would have been had 
the book been held to be but a helper, and not a finality in 
religion! All the way down to the present time has the 
priesthood (putting its own meaning upon the book) arrayed 
it more or less, in one way or another, against nature, reason, 
science, religion, and progress. At one time it is made to 
withstand astronomy, and at another geology. At the present 
time it is made to withstand the efforts to abolish war, intem- 
perance, slavery, and the wrongs which oppress woman. A.s 
the authority of the book has always been set by the priesthood 
above nature, above the teachings of nature both in and out 
of man, so it is not strange that the book, or rather what has 
passed for it, has been involved in this incessant fight with na- 
ture. All now see the folly of its fight with astronomical and 
geological nature ; and all will yet see the wickedness of its 
fight with human nature. The doctrine that man was made 
to wear the yoke of slavery will yet be as universally scouted 
as the doctrine that the great sun was made to revolve around 
the little earth. 

Book-religion can not subdue the mighty evils of the world. 
Dr. Cheever interprets the Bible against, and another Doctor 
interprets it for, slavery. Dr. Nott interprets it against, and 
another Doctor for, the drinking of intoxicating liquors. When 
Doctors disagree, the people can not decide — for it requires 
learning to decide in such a case, and the people are not 
learned. They are not linguists and critics. Hence they 
must go this way and that, according not only to the different 
but also to the changing courses of their learned leaders. 



132 MIRACLES. 

By tlie way, it is not clear that Dr. Clieever's anti-slavery 
labors will, on the whole, be "useful. They certainly will be, so 
far as the noble man succeeds in vindicating the precious Bi- 
ble from pro-slavery aspersions. But they will not be if he 
shall bring lai^e numbers to consent to let it turn finally on 
the Bible whether slavery is right or wrong. • Dr. Nott speaks 
and writes for temperance with very great ability. Neverthe- 
less, he will do more harm than good if he shall lead multi- 
tudes to make a book the final arbiter on this vital question. 

Who battles more effectively for both freedom and tem- 
perance than the great American orator, Wendell Phillips? 
Nevertheless, although he now welcomes the aid of the Bible, 
he would be found battling against it also, were he to become 
convinced that it is against freedom and temperance. Go the 
Bible as it might, he would still go for human nature, and 
therefore for the God in whose image it is made. Would you 
have him turn away from the authority of God's plainly-writ- 
ten 'book to construct an authority out of the controverted 
pages of a man- written book ? 

The religion of Nature is^alone the true religion. Nature 
then is what we must study in order to know the true religion. 
Bacon and Shakspeare, and the Bible, far above all other 
books, can help us in this study. But not even the Bible is 
the end. All books, the Bible itself included, are but means 
to the end. And of the value of these means, each one, the 
humblest as well as the highest, is to judge for himself No 
one of them, and no interpretations nor interpreters of anj^ one 
of them, are to be tolerated as an authority by even the most 
ignorant. 

Because of our doctrine that reason must sit in judgment 
upon the Bible we are often charged with placing reason 
above God. But they are guilty of placing the Bible above 
God — the human above the divine — who place it above Na- 
ture. Sweetly and gloriously as God shines in the inspired 
pages of the Bible, it is nevertheless nature, and especially 
man, the masterpiece of nature, that is emphatically and pre 
eminently the Shekinah — the divine dwelling-place. 

The great need of men is to return to the religion of nature. 
In other words, they need to become natural. In still other 



MIRACLES. 13; J 

words, tliey need to be born again. The doctrine of the new 
birth, which sacerdotalism and superstition have so mystified, 
has no other significance and no wider scope than the return- 
ing of men to the normal action of their nature. Every one 
w\\d has returned to his nature from his foolish and guilty de- 
sertions of it, is born again. To bring him bacfe to his nature 
and hold him there ; that, and that onl}^, is it for which he 
needs to be the subject of divine influences. 

That the public mind is fast escaping from its bondage to 
book-religions and the priesthood, is owing, under God, mainly 
to its enlightenment and elevation by science. The effect — 
nay, the very ofi&ce also — of science is to recall men to nature ; 
to acquaint them with her ; to regain the recognition of her 
claims, their love of her treasures, and admiration of her won- 
ders. The astronomer, geologist, chemist, anatomist, the ex- 
plorers by land and sea, the inventors and discoverers, the 
mental and moral philosophers — such are the men who, along 
with the divine inspirations both in and out of the Bible, are 
now at work, whether wittingly or im wittingly, to build up 
the religion of nature — God's only religion — on the basis of 
nature. At break of day, "ghosts troop home to church- 
yards," and owls and bats disappear. Thus must retreat the 
superstitions and despotisms which almost ever and almost 
everywhere have occupied the place belonging to religion. 
The floods of light which science is pouring out upon the earth, 
will soon leave no dark corners for book-religions to live in, 
and cabalistic priests to work and rule in. 

" They must for aye consort with black-browed night." 

It is because it has a book-religion that our country is now 
involved in a horrible civil war. The South could never have 
been incited to her unnatural and atrocious aggressions on the 
North had not her priesthood first convinced her that the Bible 
is for slavery. Her war is not merely for her slavery. It is 
for her religion also. Called for, I admit, the war is by her 
despotism, pride, avarice, luxury, licentiousness, and intense 
selfishness. Nevertheless it is also called for by her religious 
conscience. Thirty or forty years ago she would not have 
made war for slavery, for then she believed the Bible to bo 



lo4 MIRACLES. 

against slavery. Then slie excused instead of justifying it. 
Then she regarded it as an evil, and but a temporary one. 
The Bible is so read as to suit customers. It is read this way 
and that — now for rum and slavery, now against them. But 
I may be asked if there would not be as great uncertainty of 
interpretation were Nature and Providence instead of the 
Bible to become the authority in religion. There would not — 
for Nature and Providence are necessarily an open book, 
accessible and intelligible to all. They may be reasoned . upon 
by all, and they will be similarly viewed by all when all are 
freed from book-religion. But the Bible is held to be above 
human reason : and he who ventures to shove aside the priest- 
ly interpretations of it, and claims the right of his reason to 
pass upon it, is promptly branded as a despiser of authority 
and an enemy of God. 

Ere closing my discourse, let me say that among the great 
evils which will be reduced to comparatively little ones when 
the world shall be delivered from the curse of book-religions, 
is party. Small occasion will there be for religious sects, or as 
I might otherwise say, for the strife of words, when questions 
about the meanings of phrases shall have lost their paramount 
importance. And when there shall be but little of party in 
the religious world, there will be less of it out of the religious 
world. It is religious parties that train men for other parties, 
and create in them such a habit of party, and such a depend- 
ence on it, that they can not live without it ! Alas ! the power 
of party to demoralize and destroy its subjects ! This power 
is explained by the fact, that absolute rectitude, even when it 
is the theoretical, is never the practical standard of party ; and 
by the further fact, that each member of it leans upon it, stands 
not in his own strength, but in the strength of his party ; not 
in his own character, but in that of his party. His individual- 
ism is lost in a crowd ; and his own definite responsibilities are 
merged in those of a party, each member's share of which is 
quite too vague and intangible to be enforced either by his 
own conscience or the public tribunal. 

In my condemnation of party, I have had no reference to 
the temporary combinations of men for repealing this wrong 
law, or enacting that right one ; for preventing this or securing 



MIRACLES. 185 

that measure of political economy ; for electing this good can- 
didate, or defeating that bad one. Such combinations may be 
as justifiable as are those for raising or removing buildings. 
What I condemn is going into a permanent party ; going into 
it for life ; going into it for personal advantage, and to supply 
with party influence the lack of personal influence. What I 
condemn is going into a party as a matter of course ; going 
into the Baptist, or Methodist, or Odd Fellow, or Masonic 
party, because others do ; going into a political or other party, 
because you weary of the dullness of your family or yourself; 
going into it to exchange the quiet enjoyments of individual- 
ism for the excitements and frenzies of party spirit. How 
poor and evanescent the pleasures of party — of clubs ! How 
rich the harvests of self-cultivation ! How noble the results 
of self-reliance ! 

I will detain you no longer. For years our little church has 
testified against a book-religion as a great and ruinous mistake. 
This testimony, along with others which we have felt bound 
to give, has made us very odious. But still more odious shall 
we be if we deny miracles. And yet must we not deny them 
if we would do all we can to rid the world of a book-religion, 
and if we would be faithful to all our convictions? Life is 
short. Let us hasten to say what we believe men need to 
have said, even though we shall be hated for saying it. We 
can afford to forego the public approbation if bat our conscience 
approve us. 



NO HUMAN AUTHOEITY IN RELIGION. 

DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO, September 22d, 1861. 



Is it necessary that we should recognize as authority the 
Church, the sacred Book, the sacred tradition — all or 'any of 
them ? It is held to be, because they teach religion. I admit 
that they teach it — for they enjoin the principle of just dealing 
toward God and mau. In all of them there are more or less 
obscurations and contradictions of the principle. But (great 
honor to the history of man !) they all enjoin it. 

ISTevertheless, these are not to be recognized as authoritative 
sources of religious knowledge. "Were they indispensable to 
the understanding of religion, there might be a plausible plea 
for their authoritativeness. But they are not. Religion, as 
Jesus explains it, is simply doing as you would he done hy^ or, as 
Confucius, who lived five or six hundred years before him, 
phrases it : " Never to do to others what you do not wish them to do 
to youy The Koran apprehends it when it says : " One hour of 
equity is letter than seventy years of devotion^ Religion, being 
but justice, is a principle native to the human breast. Man- 
need not go away from himself to learn what it is. In other 
words, religion is natural, and the more natural we are, the 
more religious we are. It is natural in respect to human na- 
ture. It is natural in respect to all nature. For all nature, and 
this includes all providence, is full of the proofs and inculcations 
of religion. All things as God made them testify for religion. 

Are any offended at my resolving religion into dry justice ? 
Justice without love is, I admit, dry. But doing in all things 
as we would be done by can not be without love ; nay, it can not 
be without loving another even as ourself. And such love ! 
Who knows it, who has felt it, but he who is born again ? — ^but 



NO HUMAN AUTHOEITY IN EELIGION. 137 

he who, by divine influence, is recalled from his desertions of 
himself, and brought back to his nature and his God. 

Beligion, then, being so patent, so intelligible, so simple, we 
are not compelled to take it upon authority. And if not, we 
must not. For the evil of leaning upon authority is to be 
avoided wherever it can be. Where we can learn a thing for 
ourselves, we must do so for. the sake of safety, and of the 
healthful and expanding exercise of our powers. Where we 
can not, and are obliged to take refuge in authority, we can, of 
course, do no better than submit to the risk of being deceived, 
and to the disadvantage of leaving our faculties over-ridden and 
unused. Two gentlemen propose a voyage. The ignorance 
of one compels him to take the captain's word that the ship is 
sound and safe. Far better off is the other, whose knowledge 
of ships enables him to decide the point for himself. 

Were it, however, necessary to take religion upon authority, 
there is an especial and a strong reason against taking it on the 
authority of the Church, the book, or the tradition. This rea- 
son is found, first, in the fact that they abound in much else 
than rehgion; much else that is foreign, and much else that 
is repugnant to religion. Even the Church of Christendom, 
although so much better than the Mohammiedan and other 
churches, is nevertheless full of errors. So, too, are her books 
and traditions, notwithstanding their comparative excellence. 
And this reason is found, secondly, in the fact that we are re- 
quired to receive these errors as well as the truths with which 
they are associated. These errors would be nearly or quite 
harmless, were they not clothed with authority. But, unhap- 
pily, they are held to be under the same stamp of authority as 
are the truths. As undoubted by us, and as sacred in our re- 
gard, must be the story of Jonah and the whale, as the Sermon 
on the Mount ; and the like parallel must be allowed to obtain 
between the command to slaughter the innocent "little ones of 
every city," and the command to love Grod and man. Keverend 
Doctors and Right Reverend Bishops would be as quickly de- 
posed for rejecting the fish story as the Sermon. 

Only a few weeks ago an Episcopal minister told me that I 
was sinful for opposing slavery, and that the little church with 
which I am connected would be sinful for receiving' into its 



138 NO HUMAN AUTHOKITY IN RELIGION. 

membership tlie slave who had run away from his master, and 
had, to use the minister's very word, thereby " robbed " his 
master. He proceeded to tell me that were he a slave he would 
never consent to accept his freedom until his master had granted 
it. Why, in the name of common-sense, did this minister talk 
so ? Simply because he believes that every line in the Bible 
comes from God, and that, therefore, any one line in it is just as 
obligatory upon his faith and practice as any other line in it. It 
is scarcely necessary to add that he is among the millions who be- 
lieve that the Bible is in favor of slavery. Yery sad is it to see 
men holding their reason in abeyance and receiving even what is 
truth upon the authority of a miracle-sustained or any otherwise 
outwardly sustained religion. But far more sad is it to see them, 
as in the case of this minister, gulping down the enormous 
absurdities which flow along with this religion. And yet it 
must be so with all who shut themselves up to authority-reli- 
gion. They must accept the false along with the true, the non- 
sense as well as the wisdom. Are many beginning to insist on 
the right of reason to discriminate in such cases? It is only 
because many are beginning to break away from authority-reli- 
gion. It is natural to remember in this connection how weighty 
an argument it is against an authority or book-religion that 
drunken Noah's belching has been allowed to work so much 
misery. For the slavery which existed before that set up in 
our own hemisphere there was a show of right and mercy, since 
it was, for the most part, a commutation of the capital punish- 
ment usually inflicted upon the captives of war. But American 
slavery rests upon inferiority of race ; and the curse belched 
forth by Noah is the great authority for it. Without" this 
authority Christendom could not have maintained slavery. In 
this curse the American rebels have found the corner-stone for 
their Confederacy. Of scores of millions slavery has been the 
hard lot, simply because half a dozen lines found in one of the 
sacred books (9th Genesis) are held, as are all parts of such 
books, to be teachings of God's religion. Costly lines these to 
those poor millions ! Nevertheless the Churches would not 
give them up in exchange for the richest page in all the writ- 
ings of Fox or Fenelon, Wesley or Hall, Edwards or Dwight, 
Channing or Parker, Tyng or Beecher, or any other great and 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN" RELIGION. 139 

good man since the days of tlie Apostles. The proposition to 
put such a page in the platje of that scrap of history entitled 
^'Esther," or in the place of the sensual "Song of Solomon," would 
horrify them by its blasphemy. For they will have it that the 
writings which, in a superstitious and ignorant age, were culled 
from the great heap of Jewish writings, and ultimately collected 
in a book named the Bible, do alone afford proof of being 
divinely inspired. Perhaps they do. But whether they do, 
every man has as full right to decide as had Thomas or John or 
David, or any one else employed in this culling. A partial and 
unjust God have we, if inspiration or the right to decide what 
bears proof of it belongs exclusively to any age or people. 
Moreover, it is a great mistake to suppose that such a claim, 
when made in behalf of the Bible, will much longer serve to 
sustain the appreciation of its merits. It is fast sinking under 
the claim, and will sink faster unless the arrogant and senseless 
claim be abandoned. From the time I broke jail and escaped 
from my ecclesiastical keepers, I have found by experience how 
it is that they who attain to my freedom see, as they never sa,w 
before, the matchless wisdom, beauty, eloquence, and sublimity 
of the Bible. Until their liberation, inexorable authority re- 
quired them to bring all parts of the Bible to the same level — 
to drag down the words of Him who spake as " never man 
spake " into a repulsive association with passages of folly and 
falsehood, and to lift up licenses for concubinage and cruel, 
causeless war into harmony with the best, utterances of the 
noble Pau.1. But now, under the free range of reason, and of 
its approvals and disapprovals, and no longer compelled to 
strike this one level, to mix and to modify, to qualify this 
brightness, or force light into that darkness ; they are at liberty 
to separate the wheat from the chaff, the gold from the dross, 
and to magnify the one without the necessity of making allow- 
ance or deduction for the other, and to discard the one without 
retaining it at the expense of the other. ISTow they can gaze 
upon its celestial beauties without feeling obliged to blot them. 
Now they can listen to its unequaled communications without 
being offended by what is so incongruouslv mingled with them. 
Another special and strong reason why, were it necessary to 
take religion on authority, it should not be taken on such 



140 NO HUMAN AUTHOKITY IN RELIGION. 

authority as is now recognized, is, that the churches, with their 
books and traditions, are bound to* the ignorant and supersti- 
tious past. Disgraceful and pernicious is it to waive reason and 
succumb to even an intelligent authority. But shameless and 
ruinous is it for an enlightened age to consent to be bound by 
the authority of a dark one. Surely if an authoritative sacred 
book is proper, it should be made up, as far as can well be, of 
the advanced wisdom of the age. Nevertheless, Hindoos, Chi- 
nese, Jews, and Christians are still burrowing among books 
thousands of years old, turning their backs upon the sunshine 
of reason, and seeking for knowledge among the dusty relics of 
the most ignorant and superstitious times. Again, if such a 
book is proper, it should be made especially for the people whom 
it is to sway. Other parts of the world have been wiser in this 
respect than Europe and America. The Hindoos made their 
own sacred books. So did the Egyptians and Chinese theirs ; 
making them up, it is true, to a large extent from the books of 
the Hindoos. But as a whole they were adapted to the charac- 
ter and wants of the people for whom they were made. The 
Grreeks and Eomans, more liberal than others in the matter of 
religion, not only welcomed religious ideas from all quarters, 
and kept room in their Pantheons for the gods of all nations ; 
but more wise also, they blended their religion with all their 
affairs. Hence they had no technically sacred books. Had 
there been these to tie them down they would never have risen 
to the highest of all the ancient types of civihzation. Their 
superiority is accounted for by nothing so much as by their reli- 
gious liberality. Nor have Europe and America any sacred 
books of their own — those they have being borrowed from 
Asia. That in their childhood they accepted an Asiatic authori- 
tative religious guidance is not strange. But that now in their 
maturity, and when they so far surpass the wisdom of either 
ancient or modern Asia, they continue to submit to it, is very 
strange. How significant of the blinding and binding power 
of an authority-religion is the fact that enlightened Europe and 
enlightened America still cling to the books which poor, be- 
nighted, bigoted Judea furnished them ! One of the curious 
consequences of thif tenacity is that the great mass of profess- 
ing Christians (and especially of the most devout) know more 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 141 

to-day of the ancient history of the Jews than of the modern 
history of the foremost of the present nations. To study that 
eccentric, conceited, self-righteous people is held to be a pious 
duty — and therefore immeasurably more important than the 
study of the characteristics and course of France or England, 
or any other nation whose enlightenment and liberality are lift- 
ing up human nature, and honoring it and its Author. And it 
is not only to the Jewish nation that we go back for our sacred 
books. In adopting these, we do in effect go much farther 
back in the ever-darkening way toward the infancy of the 
human family. For, in the first place, not a very small part 
of the Bible was made up from the sacred books of Egypt ; 
and, in the second place, the Yedas or sacred books of Ilindos- 
tan were more or less incorporated with those of Egypt, having 
been carried there by emigrants at an early day. As proof 
that in the Egyptian fountain of which the Jews drank so freely 
were Hindostanee waters also, Jews and Hindoos are agreed 
that God is One ; that images of him may not be made, and 
that his name may not be spoken. Each, too, believes that it 
is the chosen people of God, and the sole trustee of his laws. 
With both the office of the priesthood is overshadowing. Both 
believe creation to be the product of six successive periods, and 
that man and woman came last. Noah's connection with the 
deluge is substantially that of Menu's. What is said in the 
Bible of the slaughter of the male infants, was said many ages 
before in the Hindoo books — Cansa, instead of Herod, being 
one name, and Chrishna, instead of Christ, being another. 
Again, Chrishna, like Christ, was made more happy by peni- 
tent persons than by the most rigid worshipers. The doctrine 
of the Trinity is held by the Hindoos, and most Christians be- 
lieve that it is to be found in the Bible also. The Hindoos, as 
well as the Jews, believe in a blood-atonement, and both lay the 
sins of the people on the head of an animal and turn it loose 
that it may carry them away. 

I close under this head with the remark that the parallel be- 
tween these people does not extend to their spirit. The Hin- 
doos are far the more tolerant. They require sincerity rather 
than uniformity. They hold that " Heaven is a palace of many 
doors, and each one may enter his own way." In point is the 



142 NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 

following quotation, which Mrs. Child makes from the writings 
of the Bramins : '' The Supreme Being is the friend of the 
Hindoo, the intimate of the Mohammedan, the companion of 
the Christian, and the confident of the Jew." Far back and 
very dark as was the age in which the Hindoo books were 
written, nevertheless the religion which is streaked with the 
sweet light of such charity can not be the darkest of all religions. 

The Egyptian books have perished, and what we know of 
them is what is preserved in other writings. Egypt also be- 
lieved in one God, and yet in the Trinity. She also believed 
in immortality. She also abhorred the flesh of swine. She 
also practiced circumcision — and that, too, long before she 
knew the Jews. The Egyptian priests were as distinguished 
and prerogatived a class as the Jewish priests, and among the 
ruins of Thebes are representations of the Ark, and the branched 
candlesticks, and the cherubim, and the loaves of bread. If 
the Egyptians got these from the Jews they must have got them 
more than three thousand years ago. 

I said how an authoritative sacred book, if there must be one, 
should be made up. I did not mean that it must be of modern 
utterances exclusively. Those of Jesus, the preeminent Son of 
God should be first in it. Much else of the Bible and of other 
sacred books should be in it. But it should contain the richest 
specimens of modern as well as of ancient inspiration. It should, 
in a word, be compiled on the principle of the freest eclecticism. 
Nevertheless, I would have no such book ; its authoritativeness , 
would be an evil very far overbalancing all its possible good. 

But I pass on from denying the authority of the Church, the 
book, the tradition, to deny that religion is to be taken on any 
authority. Whoever so takes his religion, and however good a 
religion it may be, is like to be more harmed than helped by it. 

Blinding regard for authority, indisposition to change and 
opposition to progress, will more or less characterize him in all 
his relations and all his life. Why is it that you can count 
upon your fingers all the Episcopal and Koman Catholic priests 
who have identified themselves with the cause of immediate 
and unconditional emancipation? It is mainly because they 
are so enslaved to authority as to venerate it wherever they 
meet it. They bow to the slaveholder because he is invested 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 143 

witli authority. They spare rum-selling and rum- drinking out 
of respect to the authority of usage. It is solely in virtue of 
authority that they exercise their office. To put an end to 
authority in religion is to u.nfrock her priests. The influence 
of such priests would have kept down the human family to its 
low level of four or five centuries ago. I am not saying that 
they are bad men. Many of them are excellent men. I. am 
only saying that they are falsely educated, and are the pitiable 
victims of authority -religion. Quite different is it with minis- 
ters of the Congregational, Baptist, and other denominations. 
Upon them the shackles of ecclesiastical authority have become 
coraparatively loose. Moreover, many of them are fast coming 
to dare to let reason instead of authority pass upon the pages of 
the Bible. Such ministers are in the transition state between 
the religion of authority and the religion of reason. But while 
in the rapid dissolution of Protestantism, they are passing on to 
the reign and liberty of reason, not a few Protestant ministers 
are resigning themselves more entirely to the sway of authority, 
and approaching their ultimate slavery and repose on the 
bosom of the Eoman Church. 

Will the world ever escape from the religion of dogmas and 
authority and be blessed with the religion of reason and human 
nature ? It will. But I become more and more convinced that 
the change is distant. Authority is the mightiest enemy of rea- 
son and truth, of God and man. This is so, if only in the light 
of the fact that it serves to spoil the temper, and make it inacces- 
sible to argument. Did you ever know a man who taught 
school a dozen years without becoming a conceited and impa- 
tient dogmatist ? Earely. A Judge, unless he have an unusu- 
ally good temper, will not fail to harm it by the exercise of 
authority. Take our orthodox neighbors ; they are pleasant on 
other subjects, but they will not argue with you on religion. 
They disdain it ; naught but apologies will they condescend to 
hear from you. Inflated and arrogant by having authority on 
their side, their ears are shut to reason, and they look down 
with contempt on those who have nothing better than reason 
to offer against authority. They treat us in much the spirit 
with which the young lad is treated who presumes to inquire 
into the reasons of his father's command. Promptly and effec- 



144 NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 

tually is lie informed that it is a case settled by authority, and 
calling, therefore, not for inquiry, but submission. The ortho- 
dox hold that authority has settled the case between them and 
us. For nearly twenty years our little " Church of Peterboro " 
has been saying to them, " Come, let us reason together," but 
religion, they will have it, is a thing not for reason to speak 
upon, but for authority to decide upon. Protestants, as well as 
Catholics, insist that they have, on the side of their faith, anti- 
quity, universality, unity. We will admit that they have. 
Nevertheless all this proved vain against the arguments of Grali- 
leo and his fellow-astronomers, and against the arguments of the 
geologists also ; and all this should be reckoned as vain against 
the inherent and utter incredibility of miracles, and against the 
innumerable absurdities in the Catholic and Protestant faith. 
Antiquity, universality, unity — all these put together do not 
furnish conclusive proof of the truth of the system which can 
plead them. It will no longer do for the friends of the Bible 
to say that the Bible is true because so many ages have trusted 
in it, and to insist therefore that time has turned it into author- 
ity. They must allow that it shall be tested by human reason, 
and that each of its pages shall be held to be true or false, ac- 
cording as they shall be approved or disapproved of human 
reason. 

Many philosophers assert that Christianity is incapable of 
proof. But they confound Christianity, which is a very simple, 
practical, intelligible thing, with one or other of the complex 
systems of theology. I admit that neither the big bundle of 
superstitions and mysteries labeled "Eomanism," nor the 
scarcely less one labeled " Protestantism," can be proved to be 
woven out of truth. Nevertheless, Christianity can be proved 
to be truth, because fair dealing toward our fellow-men and our 
Maker is truth, and because such dealing is Christ's explanation 
of religion, and such explanation is all there is of Christianity. 
A very injurious mistake is it that Christ set up a new religion. 
He did but explain the one only religion — the unchangeable 
and everlasting religion — the religion which he showed rather 
than explained, its simplicity being more self-evident than sus- 
ceptible of explanation. Millions of Eoman Catholics and Pro- 
testants have experienced in their honest hearts the power, and 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 145 

brought forth in their beautiful lives the fruits of religion. But 
they were mistaken in believing that Christ taught that eitl^er 
Eoman Catholicism or Protestantism is religion. His mission 
was to eliminate religion of all such and kindred rubbish, and 
so to simplify it that all persons, even •' babes," might under- 
stand it. He did not tell the crowds which waited on his min- 
istry to go to a priesthood or to a theological seminary to learn 
what is religion ; but appealing to each man's moral sense, he 
asks: "And why judge ye not of yourselves what is right?' 
To do as you luould he done hy he held to be the whole of reli- 
gion — and how you would be done by is what no man is under the 
necessity of going to another to learn, but what every man can 
learn of himself. Every man's self-love can teach him that. 
Jesus taught the religion of human nature in opposition to all 
conventionalisms. Gome hack to your nature ! is his sole require- 
ment of all who have strayed away from it. The same spirit which 
enabled him so to abide in and honor his nature, as to make it, 
in respect to its moral character, even one with his Father's na- 
ture, he would breathe into all our hearts to help us return from 
our foolish and guilty wanderings. Without that spirit — in 
other words, without being "born again" — we shall never re- 
turn. With it we shall. "Looking unto Jesus," the highest 
example of that spirit's power and the highest ideal of the 
Father's moral nature, is the great means for getting back to 
our own beautiful but madly deserted nature. 

In connection with my denial that the failure to prove Pro- 
testantism and Catholicism is the failure to prove Christianity, 
let me deny that to reject this or that part of the Bible is to re- 
ject religion. Eeligion, if not quite a self-evident truth, is so 
near it as to be properly called it. But there is much in the 
Bible which can not be proved. Its moral character, meaning 
that of its great principles and sentiments, speaks for itself and 
commends itself. But nearly all else in it is destitute not only 
of conclusive, but even of considerable proof. The wars of the 
Bible are probably as inaccurately described as the wars of other 
as old books, and its miracles are doubtless as groundless ima- 
ginations or sheer fictions, as are the miracles of other books of 
those ancient dates, when the empire of superstition was univer- 
sal, and the popular appetite for marvels so clamorous. 



146 NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 

I said that the world will be slow to give up the religion of 
authority for that of reason. Submission to the religion of au- 
thority is the strongest of all the habits that bind us ; and what is 
most lamentable in the case of an evil habit is the extreme difficul- 
ty of throwing it oK How extreme is now manifested in our un- 
happy country. We are living in the midst of events the most 
portentous the world has ever witnessed. The hour has come when 
the very existence of this great nation is threatened ; and when 
we see, as we never saw before, the measureless evil of this well- 
nigh universal enslavement to authority. When the present 
war burst out, it found the North fast bound in habits of defer- 
ence to slavery and worship of the Constitution — habits to 
which alone it will be owing if the North is conquered. Noth- 
ing had done so much to intensify these habits as the ceaseless 
cunning cry of the slaveholders for the Constitution, and their 
ceaseless cunning lie that it was made especially for the protec- 
tion and advantage of slavery. All our patriotism was sum- 
moned in behalf of the Constitution, and all our love of the 
Constitution was appealed to in behalf of slavery. We were 
reckoned no patriot, and stood little chance for office, .if we 
did not worship the Constitution ; and the way of all ways to 
prove the sincerity of this worship was to worship slavery. . To 
take advantage of this weakness of the North has been the rul- 
ing policy of the South for a whole generation. Emphatically 
has it been the artful and effective policy of the rebels ever 
since they began the war. While they were firing at our ships 
and forts, and plundering us of our property, they did not for- 
get to remind us that our part of the work was to observe the 
Constitution — ay, and to observe it very scrupulously. In the 
late session of Congress, while the loyal members were engaged 
upon plans for meeting Southern force with Northern force, the 
impudent and hypocritical members, who were in the interest 
of the rebels, and despised the Constitution, were pouring forth 
their lamentations over the unconstitutionality of these plans. 
Nothing is so effectual to interest us in sparing and promoting 
slavery as this parade of affection for the Constitution which we 
idolize, and this assumption that slavery is the Constitutional 
darling. This taking men in the line of their weakness is tac- 
tics of a very effective kind. Justin, an old Latin historian, 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 147 

says tliat the Scythians could not subdue their revolted slaves 
until they went at them with whips instead of swords. It was 
the habit of the slaves to yield to whips ; and whips, with the 
help of this habit, were therefore mightier upon them than 
swords. Now, President Lincoln would be as brave as a lion 
in the presence of the biggest gun in the whole Southern army, 
but only remind him of his Constitutional obligations to slav- 
ery — in other words, only take him where habit has already 
taken and conquered him — and he becomes as weak as a Scy- 
thian slave. However brave and strong he is elsewhere, never- 
theless in the line of his weakness he is nothing but weakness. 
And yet how can he help it ? He should not be judged harshly. 
Like many an honest man he finds it hard to go against his ha- 
bits. There was one rebel against whom even king David 
could not fight. He could not so far suspend the habit of his 
heart. Over this rebel it was that his weakness exclaimed : 
" Would God I had died for thee !" I do not believe that the 
President will carry his lamentation so far over slavery when 
that rebel is dead. Nevertheless, when I see him periling his 
country for the sake of this most accursed rebel, albeit it is, as 
he views it, for the sake of saving the Constitution, I feel like 
saying to him, as did Joab to David : " Thou lovest thine ene- 
mies, and hatest thy friends." Enemies indeed are they ! — not 
slavery only, but in effect the Constitution also ; for by means 
of the artfulness of the foe and of our own weakness, untimely 
and excessive care for the Constitution has become the greatest 
danger of the country. When I see commander after com- 
mander' sending men into slavery, and hear no rebuke of it 
from the President, I confess that I am ready to exclaim : 
" Thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy friends." These 
commanders trample not upon humanity only, but upon the 
Constitution also. But the President, educated to look upon 
the Constitution as the servant of slavery, is alarmed for it by 
nothing that is pro-slavery, but by that only which is anti-slav- 
ery. Is it said that these commanders are not bound to respect 
the Constitution at all times? I admit that they are not. 
Nevertheless they are never to act irrespective of it save for the 
one purpose of military advantage. But how there can be such 
advantage in declining the help of men and turning them into 



148 NO HUMAN AUTIIOKITY IN KELIGION. 

enemies I do not perceive. To every one guilty of such folly 
and madness do the words apply: " Thou lovest thine enemies 
and hatest thy friends." Less than three weeks ago a black 
man reached our camp on the Indiana side of the Ohio in such 
distressful and affecting circumstances as would have moved 
men of heart to bathe him in tears of pity and love, but with a 
malignity and fiendishness more unnatural and gratuitous than 
ever before heard of, he was seized and sent South, to be the 
slave of a rebel of&cer. The President has no censure for the 
outrage. Probably he construes it into a happy instance of de- 
votion to the Constitution ; but if he does, then again can it be 
said to him : " Thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy 
friends." Such crimes as I have here adverted to are what 
often fills me with fear that my country is lost ; and that the 
best men and women in it, toil and pray they ever so much for 
it, " shall but deliver their own souls." My fear is not of the 
rebels. It springs from the fact that God fights against us, and 
that He will not cease until we have ceased to fight against his 
poor. We are stronger than the rebels, but God is strouger 
than we. 

Of all that has occurred to inspire me with the apprehension 
that the President's habit of worshiping the Constitution and 
slavery will never be broken, and that our country may there- 
fore perish, his recent treatment of General Fremont is chief. 
The proclamation put forth by that brave and judicious man, 
had awakened, all over the North, the hope that the policy of 
saving the Constitution and slavery at the hazard of losing the 
country, was at last entirely abandoned. But the Pl'esident 
has laid his hand upon the proclamation and blasted all the 
hope it had awakened. Here again he has invited the 
remonstrance : " Thou lovest thine enemies and hatest thy 
friends." Let me say of the proclamation, that if it is wrong, 
it is so solely because the exigencies of war did not call for 
it. To say, as the President does, that it is wrong because 
it does not correspond with a certain law of Congress, is simply 
ridiculous — disgraceful to himself aiid to the country which has 
called him into his high office. Amid such exigencies com- 
manders are not to look to Congress for law. They " are a law 
unto themselves." Least of all are they to look to such a poor, 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 149 

cowardly, contemptible, absurd law as is this, wbicb the President 
thrusts in the face of Fremont, and bids him obey. The Presi- 
dent was reluctant to sign this law because it bore so hard upon 
the rebels, whereas he should have refused to sign it because it 
bore no harder. What a law was this to enact when the enemy 
was at our gates ! — a law providing that we might take a very 
little of the enemy's property, and leaving the whole balance to 
be used by him for prosecuting the war against us ! What is 
more clear than that both Congress and the President are still 
under the spell of slavery, and still bound up in their educated 
servility to it, and still far from being entirely in earnest in the 
work of saving their country! I sometimes am tempted to 
wish that I were not an Abolitionist — that so I might be heard — 
for yet awhile an Abolitionist can not, must not be heard. My 
soul is sick of the shams of this war. My indignation is impa- 
tient to break forth in the presence of popular assembles. But 
on the whole I am content to be an Abolitionist, and to belong 
to that class which, say what you will against it, will never fur- 
nish an inmate for Fort Lafayette, nor for any other prison for 
traitors. ISTo, never one of this class will be so much as sus 
pected of sympathy with the rebels. I do not forget that the 
Abolitionists are esteemed to be fools ; but give me earnest folly 
in preference to heartless wisdom. 

One reason why Abolitionists are, as Abolitionists, saying so 
little is, that until the country is up to the low point of saving 
itself, it is vain to ask it to save the slave. When a man is 
drunk we do not speak to him of Christianity ; we wait until he 
gets sober. When he is insane we postpone speaking to him 
of what sanity alone can comprehend. Until our country shall 
have so far come to herself as to be willing to defend herself by 
every weapon within her reach, and to reduce the power of her 
enemy in every possible waj', she will be quite too low to be 
reached by Abolition truth. That truth will be to her but as 
'^ pearls before swine." We will talk to no man for the slave 
who is himself so enslaved to his prejudices, or so tender of the 
guilty interests of his foe as to refuse to be saved at the expense 
of offending those prejudices or of damaging those interests. 
Our first work with that man is to cure him of his idiocy or 
insanity. 



150 NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN EELIGION. 

The course for the President to pursue toward General Fre- 
mont was a plain one. 1. If he had confidence in the General's 
judgment he should have left him to its free exercise, instead 
of exciting doubts of its soundness, and thereby impairing his 
prestige and influence. A schoolmaster correcting the written 
page of his pupil illustrates the attitude to which the President 
has degraded Fremont in the eyes of the country and its ene- 
my. No thanks to the President if either in council or battle 
Fremont shall still be able to have himself respected as every 
commander needs be respected. 2. If the President were so 
conceited as to believe that he, sitting in Washington, knew more 
of the wants of Missouri than did Fremont, who was acting in 
Missouri, then he should have recalled him and supplied his 
place with one in whose wisdom he had more confidence. But 
I have no doubt that all the differences in this case between the 
President and Fremont are resolvable into the single difference 
that while the one does, like a wise man, hold to the command- 
er's absolute right, in certain circumstances, to dispose, at his 
mere discretion, of any or all the property of the foe, the other, 
sadly perverted by his pro-slavery training — if not, indeed, 
ruinously so both for himself and country — still persists in qual- 
ifying this right. It is for the country to decide between them. 
If it goes with Fremont at this point it is saved, but if with the 
President it is lost. It is idle to deny that this is the real differ- 
ence, and that the cause of it on the part of the President is re- 
gard for slaveholding interests. If he was so slow to consent 
that even Congress should provide for the confiscation of even 
so small a part of the possessions of the rebels, how strongly 
must he have been opposed to sweeping them all away — and 
that, too, by a so much humbler authority ? Again, if the 
President must take exception to the proclamation, why was it 
not to that part which orders the sure and summary shooting ? 
Simply because that is not the part which disturbs his long and 
deeply-cherished sense of the sacredness of slave property. His 
concern is for such property — not for life. The President 
seizes citizens' even in the free States, and imprisons them with- 
out publicly preferring any charges against them. He suspends 
the habeas corpus even where martial law is not declared. All 
this he does without caring to have any cover of law for it ; and 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 151 

in all this I admit that he is right, emphatically right. But 
slavery he holds is too sacred to be touched but in the name of 
law I Nay, he can hardly be brought to sign a law for touch- 
ing it, even very tenderly ! For God's sake, and man's sake, do 
I say — out with this pro-slavery education ! 

I said that the country is the umpire between the President 
and Fremont. It has already shown itself to be on the side of 
Fremont. Such as the New- York State Democratic Committee 
praise the President ; and in having the glory of such he verily 
has his reward. I see with amazement and sorrow that Mr. 
Holt, of Kentucky, is on the side of the President. Knowing 
his fine talents and his declarations in favor of "no compro- 
mise " with the rebels, I should once have been glad to see him 
in the Cabinet. But I beg to know what is compromising 
with them if exempting a part of their property from our grasp 
is not. Nay, I deny (and, earth over, the court of common- 
sense will sustain my denial) that the President and Mr. Holt 
are to be regarded as favoring the most earnest prosecution of 
this war, so long as they will leave to the foe the property he 
needs for furnishing himself food, clothing, or other means of 
subsistence, be this property plows, horses, or any thiiig else 
which he claims and uses as property. That Mr. Holt's soul is 
not yet wrought up into such prosecution of the war is manifest 
from his calling the disposal of the slaves of the rebels a "deli- 
cate and perplexing question." I trusted that he had by this 
time got very far beyond that mile-stone — very far beyond feel- 
ing delicacy or perplexity in depriving the rebels of any of 
their property or power. I trusted, in a word, that he was by 
this time for war, without any qualifications or reservations. 

Mr. Holt illustrates in himself the mistake of hoping that 
men, brought up under the befogging and befooling influences 
of slavery, can ever be good for any thing as statesmen or law- 
yers on questions connected with slavery. Mr. Holt does not 
admit that the slaves, which our Government takes from the 
rebels, do thereby become necessarily free. On the contrary 
he manifestly believes that it will be for ''the Courts of the 
United States or subsequent legislation " to decide whether they 
are free, or whether they have but shifted owners. Such is his 
view of the Constitution, that Government can become a great 



152 NO HUMAN" AUTHOEITY IN RELIGION. 

slave owner under it — ^having millions of slaves to hire out or 
to sell ! 

The bare statement of Mr. Holt's position is enough to show 
its absurdity. Not only is it true (and this Mr. Holt will him- 
self admit) that the change which, the President's fingers (not 
Fremont's unsoiled fingers) put into the proclamation, has no 
retroactive power, and that, therefore, the slaves whom he freed 
are forever free ; but it is also true that the slaves who, under 
the changed proclamation or under the law of Congress referred 
to, shall pass into the hands of Grovernment, will also be for- 
ever free — at the most, men being slaves under State law — 
never after they have passed under Federal law ; for if it is 
held that it is the office of Federal law to enforce State law in 
certain circumstances against slaves, nevertheless it is not held 
that Federal law extends to the making of slaves. Being but 
auxiliary to the State law, the Federal law can no longer have 
to do with the case after the State law has forever ceased to 
operate in it. In other words, the Federal law has no independ- 
ent or original action in the case. In still other words, when 
the slave has escaped from the clutches of the State law he has 
escaped from the clutches of slavery. But it may be said that 
our own State did in the Eevolutionary war continue to hold in 
slavery the slaves whom it took from the rebels. It did — though 
it soon acknowledged their manhood. But the conclusive an- 
swer is — ^that in that case the slaves did not pass, as in this 
case, under one law from another ; they remained under the 
same law ; they changed owners without changing laws. 

And Mr. Holt says that General Fremont's proclamation 
" violates the law of Congress." But just as well might he say 
that it violates a law of the British Parliament ; for, in decid- 
ing what the exigencies of war called for at his hands. General 
Fremont was no more to be guided by a law of Congress than 
by a law of Parliament. Those exigencies and his power to 
meet them belonged to a sphere where the civil law was silent. 
But it is hardly fair to single out Mr. Holt for censure. He is 
only chiming in with the Administration policy of tying up the 
war power with Constitutions, statutes, and red tape. What a 
laughing-stock throughout the world does this war make of 
American wisdom ! It is only, however, from what slavery 



NO HUMiAN AUTHOKITY IN RELIGION. 153 

has done to us that our wisdom is at so great a discount. In 
other words, it is slavery only that has made us fools. Take 
any other people and compel them to sustain slavery and to be 
mixed up with it, and they will be as great fools as we are. By 
nature we are as bright as others ; and, indeed, we are still 
bright in all those things where slavery does not control and 
confuse us. 

And we have become as sensitive and thin-skinned as foolish. 
We wince under the letters which a correspondent of the Lon- 
don Times writes about us. Even our Secretary of State, 
though he would not have them hung for treason, intimates that 
such writers " pervert our hospitality." For my part I have 
regarded these letters, as well as those of the same writer on the 
South, as no less fair than able. Both North and South should 
thank him for them. This writer, and all other writres on the 
war, are at liberty not only to ridicule and denounce the North 
for protracting the war, but they are to be excused even if they 
curse her for it. For an enormous crime against Grod and man 
is she guilty of in letting this war run on to the needless slaugh- 
ter of tens of thousands and the needless expenditure of hun- 
dreds of millions, when, but for this squeamishness against 
using certain means, it would have been ended ere this time. 
Should a part of the counties of England revolt, and should 
the Government show, like ours, more concern to save a partic- 
ular interest of the rebels than to save the country, Americans 
would write quite as sarcastically and severely of England as 
do Englishmen of America. 

" Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as ithers see us, 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion," 

The next best thing to this self-discernment is to learn from 
others how we look. It should be very advantageous to this 
nation to learn how in the eyes of the world looks the nation 
that, for the first time in the history of wars, is too dainty to be 
saved in the vulgar way of crippling your enemy however you 
can. I once heard of an aristocratic gentleman who, being con- 
victed of his sins, and the peril of his soul, was willing to seek 
salvation upon his knees, provided only that it might be in a 



154 NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 

carpeted room. The selectness of this gentleman well illus- 
trates that of our country. Saving yourself anyhow is no less 
offensive to the fastidious taste of a negro-despising nation than 
it is to the refined habits of an aristocratic sinner ; and not less 
wide does hell yawn for such a foolish nation than for such a 
foolish individual. 

One thing that foreigners are now seeing, and that even we, 
notwithstanding our blinding self-esteem, can hardly fail to see, 
is that although the democratic education is incomparably the 
best one for times of peace, it is not so certainly the best one for 
every emergency and requirement of war. Circumstances there 
have been and will be in the present war in which the com- 
mander must forget Constitution, statute, and public opinion, 
and do what he will as freely and fully as the veriest despot. 
Nevertheless, candor obliges me to confess that it is not yet 
abundantly proved that either our people or our rulers, civil or 
military, are prepared to fall in with the calls of such circum- 
stances, so trained are they all to boundless respect for law and 
opinion, and to boundless dread of whatever disregards either. 

I do not deny that foreigners are looking forward to the 
possible necessity of the recognition of the Southern Confed- 
eracy by the nations of the earth. And why should .they not 
be ? The world is not bound to bear for a long time the great 
disturbance by this war of her industrial and commercial inter- 
ests. Moreover, she is bound to shorten this time if she finds 
us refusing to put forth every effort to shorten it. Again, 
should we persist in our abominable war upon the blacks, and 
should the South, in order to gain favor at home and abroad, be 
pressed into the policy of Emancipation, the nations ought 
not to defer for a single day the recognition of the Southern 
nation — ay, and to hold it in higher esteem than the Northern 
one. The continued madness of our rulers and our press leads 
me to anticipate as a far more than possible event this honor of 
the South and this disgrace of the Korth. I add that. North- 
ern and strongly Northern as I am, nevertheless, the South, 
giving up injustice, would be dearer to me than the North con- 
tinuing in it. I would honor justice, though at the expense of 
patriotism. 

A word just here concerning the great popular error of con- 



NO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 156 

founding the Constitution of the country with the nature of her 
Government. People seem to think that an American can not 
be in favor of democratic government unless he is constantly 
boiling over with concern for the Constitution. But let me 
say, who, from having stood up so long for every line and let- 
ter of it, can afford to say it, that the Constitution is not the 
Government, but only the way in which the Government 
expresses itself Our Government is in its large sense that 
grand democratic principle which lies deep down in the heart 
of our people, and which will not be given up for any other 
kind of government. If need be for the salvation of the coun- 
try, let the Constitution be thrown to the winds. To that end 
the North may trample it as deep imder foot as the South has 
done. The democratic principle, which our people cherish, will 
reproduce Constitutions as often as there may be occasion for 
them. It is, I repeat it, the Government, and the Constitution 
is but the way in which, for the time being, the principle oper- 
ates. The principle will, I trust, be eternal — ay, and in the 
end, universal also ; but the Constitutions which are made to 
carry it out may be changed from generation to generation. 
People are foolish in saying that their country will be gone 
when the Constitution is gone. I own that I shall have no 
country left, and shall wish none left, when her chosen and 
cherished principle of Government shall have been crushed out 
of her. But that principle can survive a thousand Constitu- 
tions ; and as long as it lives and reigns, or bnt promises to 
reign, in my country, so long I shall have a country. Our 
present war is a struggle between the friends and foes of that 
principle — the friends and foes of democracy. Its friends will 
prevail if they shall come to be entirely in earnest, but not 
otherwise. They are not in earnest who have time to talk arid 
hearts to tremble for the Constitution. And they are not in 
earnest who, like the late State Democratic Convention in Syra- 
cuse, or like numerous politicians all over the North, can, at 
such a time as this, amuse themselves with getting up, or with 
threats of getting up, issues with the Eepublicans and with the 
Abolitionists. They and they only are in earnest who, until 
their country is safe, go for nothing bnt her, and against noth- 
ing but her enemies. 



156 KO HUMAN AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 

Let me say, ere passing from tlie political part of my discourse, 
that while some will argue, from the recent disasters in his dis- 
trict, Fremont's military incompetence, others will argue, and 
far more wisely, the necessity of his stringent measures among 
such mighty hordes of rebels, and the great mistake of the Pre- 
sident in relaxing them. 

You will pardon me for consuming so much of your time 
with my illustration of the extreme difficulty of getting rid of 
an evil habit — the topic being so important. You will pardon 
me, too, for having coupled other things with the illustration — 
those other things so deeply concerning the cause of our coun- 
try. I return from my digression to repeat that the world will 
be slow to cease from its submission to the religion of authority. 
But until it does, how slow must be the progress of moral truth ? 
All over the earth are good men who long to deliver it from the 
reign of ignorance, crime, and vice, and to lift up their fellows 
to higher and still higher planes of life. But, alas ! good Hin- 
doos can work to this end only through the Shaster and the 
Yeda ; good Persians only through the Zend-Avesta ; good 
Mohammedans only through the Koran; and good Christians 
only through the Bible ! How circuitous their routes ! and how 
clogged the travelers at , every step ! Such a noble man as 
Cheever or Beecher has to make two issues with his hearers 
before he can get the given proposition in contact with their 
understandings: 1st. The Bible is truth. 2d. It contains the 
proposition. But how different the process of the Grreat Teacher I 
Passing by all books, institutions, and authorities, he went 
straight to the man, insisting that the man was himself capable 
of judging " what is right ;" and therefore that he must for him- 
self, and not another for him, decide the proposition. And 
what an unnatural and false religion that must be which every 
man can not understand for himself ! Surely God never gave 
it — for, as we have already said, ".babes" can understand his 
religion. It is b}^ just this Christ process that such men as 
Garrison and Phillips have been able to sink their great but 
unpopular truths into tens of thousands of hearts. They have 
dragged men out from their skulking-places behind this and 
that authority, and compelled them, in the use of their own rea- 
son, enlightened by whatever book or no book, and above all 
by the Holy Spirit, to decide for themselves what is truth ! 



NO HUMAN" AUTHORITY IN EELIGION. 157 

I will detain you no longer. This religion wMcli I have set 
before you — this religion of reason and of Jesus — this simple 
religion of doing as you would be done by — is the religion for 
which the whole world is perishing. How quickly it would 
save our poor, ruin-threatened country! for how quickly it 
would " let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke !" This 
is the religion which I ask you to help establish in all the earth. 
This and this alone is what will scatter the shams and supersti- 
tions which stand in the way of it, which darken and degrade 
the soul of man, and prevent the development of his godlike 
nature. Come then to our help, and leave not that to be done 
by your children and children's children which it is a shame 
for you not to do yourselves. 

In commending this religion to you, I say not that it will 
increase your popularity and patronage. It may take away 
from you all public favor and many of your customers, and 
blast your every hope of political preferment. It may "cast 
out your name as evil," and sink you in very deep poverty, but 
the self-respect with, which, it will inspire you, and the increased' 
peace it will give to you, will far more than compensate for all 
the outward losses it can occasion you. His loving and living 
this religion cost the Saviour his earthly life. Your loving and 
living it may cost yours. But as he gained a " nobler life " by 
losing this, so may you. *' He that loseth. his life shall find it." 



DISCOUESE IN BOSTON 



JTJN-EJ 15, 18 6 S . 



I LOVE this world — not only its lands wliicli are near, but 
tliose wliicli are far off — not only its waters wliicli I liave seen, 
but tliose wliicli I have not seen. I love its white men, and 
also its red and black men. To me the world is full of at- 
tractions and endearments. Moreover, I am unconscious of 
enmity or prejudice against nation or individual. Not strange, 
is it, then, that I should be reluctant to leave the world. Nev- 
ertheless, I am more reluctant to leave it because of what is 
hateful than of what is lovely in it. I would linger in it longer, 
and yet longer, to exert more and more faithfully my infinitesi- 
mal share of influence against those gigantic forms of evil 
which my observations and reflections and corresponding ef- 
forts during many years have educated my soul to hate. It is 
because I must leave so much which is hateful in the world to 
war against so much in it which is lovely, that I feel unready 
to depart from it. If, in all this, I betray the littleness of my 
faith in God, and a foolish self-magnification also, so be it. I 
had better be frank than disguised. 

I shall leave an af&icted and distressed world. For war will 
continue its wholesale slaughters. Slavery, which is the worst 
type of war, will go on multiplying its agonized victims and 
matchless horrors. Intemperance will not stop perpetrating its 
innumerable murders, which are the worst kind of murders. 
Land monopoly will keep on robbing the poor of homes. 
Woman will continue to be cruelly and shamefully oppressed, 
until, in the long distance, she shall become sufiicientlv devel- 
oped to see that she is oppressed. Civil government will con- 
tinue its bad work, until, confined at last in its own narrow 



DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 159 

province, tlie beneficence of its future legitimate functions shal] 
exceed tlie miscliief of its former usurpations. 

But there is another great evil which I shall leave in the 
world. It is far greater than any I have spoken of. It is the 
priesthood — the sacerdotal or clerical order of men. The priests, 
be they those of China, Hindostan, Arabia, Persia, Europe. Amer- 
ica, or elsewhere, and be they however honest, are the worst 
enemies of mankind. They are preeminently responsible for 
all great evils. For it is they preeminently who keep mankind 
down in those false states, and upon those low planes, where 
ignorance and superstition nourish and give scope to all great 
evils. 

Why is it that Spain is so far behind the other great Euro- 
pean States in the march of civilization ? Why is she still in- 
fested with innumerable hordes of robbers? Why is she still 
making so inconsiderable contributions to the stock of human 
knowledge and useful inventions? Why is that persecuting 
spirit which, in times past, prompted her to shed the blood of 
scores of thousands of conscientious and innocent worshipers, 
still rife within all her borders ? Why does she still cling to 
Slavery and the African slave-trade? It is all because her 
Government and people are still, as they have been for twelve 
hundred years, so thoroughly under the influence of the priests. 
It was nearly two centuries after Harvey discovered the circu- 
lation of the blood, before her physicians would believe in it. 
For nearly a century her schools rejected Ne-wton's Astronomy 
and clung to Aristotle's Philosophy ; and all this for the as- 
signed reason that the one did not, and the other did harmo- 
nize with, "revealed religion." 

But the priesthood, say its advocates, is necessary to teach 
religion. I admit the necessity of religion. It is the one thing 
needful. Man is a religious being. He is made to appreciate 
the claims of God and man upon him ; and to love his Great 
Father and equal brother. Had he but remained religious, this 
world, which is now so full of guilt and misery, would have 
been a paradise. But when he was in the infancy of his race, 
and was therefore ignorant, superstitions began to graft them- 
selves upon his ignorance, and to mingle with and corrupt his 
religion. Ere long they were piled up into those huge struct. 



160 DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 

ures of tlieology, or ratlier demonology, which cast their black 
and baleful shadows over the earth, and leave little room for 
the sunlight of truth to reach and feed and sustain the religion 
of truth. It was these superstitions which called for a priest- 
hood; and to maintain and multiply them was, and still is, its 
one work. So far, therefore, from its being necessary to teach 
and promote religious truth, the of&ce of the priesthood has 
ever been to put superstitions in the place of religion, and false- 
hoods in the place of truth. But I would not be so unchari- 
table and so unjust as to make wrong motives the spring of all 
its wrong deeds. In all ages the priesthood has been deluded 
as well as deluding. 

A priesthood is not necessary to teach religion, It is as un- 
necessary as would be a professorship to teach the necessity 
of breathing. It is not religion that calls for a priesthood. It 
is such cabalistic mysteries and silly superstitions as abound in 
the sacred books that call for it. And the priesthood calls for 
these. They live and grow of each other. The people who 
are most given to these mysteries and superstitions crave the 
most priests. Where Americans are content with one priest, 
Spaniards want half a dozen. The happy man w^hose reason 
and courage have at last worked him clear of priestly dominion, 
has far more dread of a priest than of any other evil doer. He 
may still go to hear a Frothingham in Kew-York, a Furness in 
Philadelphia, and a Channing in Washington. But it is be- 
cause they are simply preachers, instead of technical priests. 
He may still go to hear a Beecher and a Cheever. But it is 
because there is so much of the unpriestly, and so little of the 
priestly in them. 

Oh no ! religion needs not a priesthood ! It is as simple and 
instinctive as is eating or drinking. It is as much born with 
us as is our foot or hand. From ancestral faults or other 
causes our moral affections may be born imperfect. So, too, 
may our foot or hand. But in neither case is our nature respon- 
sible for the imperfection. The circulation of the blood is 
not more a law of our nature than is loving all and being just 
to all. And religion is neither more nor less than loving all 
and being just to all. 

The priests tell us that religion is a system and a science. 



DISCOURSE IN BOSTON 161 

But it is neither. It is our heart's recognition of our relations 
and obligations. It is simply fidelity to our nature. Had we 
never deserted our nature, we should never have been irre- 
ligious ; and all that religion now asks of us is but to return 
from that desertion. The religion of human nature is harmony, 
not only with human nature, but with all nature and with 
G-od. For every part ol nature is harmonious with every other 
part of it. And all nature is in harmony with the Author of 
all nature. 

The great Teacher of the duties of religion did not regard it 
as a system or a science, when he asked of the unlearned people : 
" And why judge ye not even of yourselves what is right ?" 
He did not so regard it when he *iid: "I thank thee, Father, 
Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from 
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." The 
wise and prudent were busy with their bundles of superstitions 
and man-made religions. The God-made or true religion 
"babes" had — for they were born with it. All are born with 
it ; and hence, when one loses this babe-religion, be must, in 
order to recover it, become a babe again. " "Whosoever shall 
not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not 
enter therein." Did the churches know Jesus and his relisfion, 
how quick would they cease from their jargon about Election, 
Atonement, Trinity, and all that, which not only a "little 
child," but even a big man can not understand! And how 
quick would they set themselves to the cultivation of that 
babe-religion, which lies within the comprehension of all! 
What if miracles could be proved by themselves, or could be 
proved by aught else, or what if they could prove something 
else, or even much, else than their own contradiction to all na- 
ture and all human experience ! Nevertheless, they can not be 
needed to prove religion ; for that, being as self-evident as any 
other part of human nature, needs no proof. 

By what line of argument is it that I hold the priesthood to 
be so largely responsible for the wrongs and wretchedness of 
the world ? I answer that these come chiefly of the lack of 
religion, and that this lack comes chiefly of the priesthood. 
No men are so effective in shutting religion out of the world as 
they whose calling is to build up superstitions and falsehoods 



162 DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 

in the place of religion. In all countries the priesthood wars 
upon nature, and insists that 

" Nature must count her gold but dros3 
If she would gain the heavenly land." 

In all countries the priesthood insists that human nature must 
be supplanted by another and antagonistic one ; the real by the 
imaginary ; the known by the unknown. 

To get rid of the priesthood is the greatest need of the peo- 
ple. But neither soon nor easily will this be accomplished. 
They are suited to each other, and have a strong affinity for 
each other. The people will not get rid of the priesthood so 
long as they admit the authority and conclusiveness of the 
Bible, the Koran, and the other sacred books, to interpret and 
inculcate which is the office of the priesthood. And they will 
continue to admit this authority and conclusiveness so long as 
they believe in the miracles by which these books are authenti- 
cated. Faith in miracles is at the base of their unquestioning 
submission to the Church and her books ; and only in propor- 
tion as this submission shall cease, will the priesthood cease. 
Idle is it, then, to make direct war upon the priests. For the 
people will stand by them — and all the closer on account of such 
war. Idle, too, is it to make direct war upon the authority and 
infallibility of the sacred books. For so long as the people be- 
lieve in the miracles bound up with these books, the books will 
be to them as the voice of God. 

The only way to get rid of the priesthood is to educate the 
people to require evidence for what they believe, and to form 
habits of mind which shall make them as skeptical as they are 
now credulous. Skepticism is the first step in the world's prog- 
ress from a blind and false to an intelligent and true faith ; and 
whenever this fiTst step is taken, then the occupation of the 
priesthood is gone — gone forever — with all its cabalisms and 
mysteries, mummeries and magic. Happily, too, the acquiring 
of these habits will be attended by the acquisition of know- 
ledge ; and the one will work with the^ other to undermine and 
overthrow the priesthood Fear and wonder are the chief ele- 
ments of superstition. These are supplied by ignorance. Cour- 
age and composure come of knowledge, and grow with it. Let 
it not be supposed that I am here running counter to what 



DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 163 

I have before said, and that I am making an increase of know- 
ledge essential to the understanding of what religion is. I am 
commending knowledge because it is essential to clear the way 
of religion of the superstitions and rubbish with which ignor- 
ance crowds it, and which it fatally confounds with religion. 
I admit that much knowledge is essential to the preservation of 
religion ; and it is in the point of view just taken that it is so. 
The labors in India of Schwartz, the missionary, were wonder- 
fully successful. Great numbers became truly and deeply re- 
ligious. But in the next generation the field of his labors 
showed scarce a trace of those labors. The old waves of ignor- 
ance and superstition had again rolled over it ; for the op- 
pressed people had not mind enough and knowledge enough to 
beat them back. 

And happily, too, the kind of knowledge, in acquiring which 
we are most successful in creating these habits of exacting 
proofs, is the very kind most adapted to save religion from be- 
ing confounded with superstitions and overwhelmed by them. 
It is physical knowledge. Milton would have been as clear of 
superstitions and of submission to authority-religions as was 
Humboldt, had he acquired physical knowledge to the extent 
Humboldt did ; and had he, moreover, lived in Humboldt's in- 
stead of in a comparatively dark and superstitious age. The study 
of the natural sciences — including, as it does, the habit of re- 
quiring strict proof — constantly diminishes that credulity 
through which superstition enters, and on which it feeds. The 
great reason why both naturalists and lawyers are generally want- 
ing in sympathy with the churches and their superstitions, and 
are, therefore, so generally called irreligious, is that they are ha- 
bituated to require evidence for what they believe. For various 
reasons of convenience and advantage, many of them give their 
assent to the popular religion ; but the indifference with which 
they do so shows how little faith they have in it. But are not 
clergymen also trained to exact evidence? How can it be 
said that they are when they dispense with evidence in their 
premises, lay their foundations in assumptions, and make mira- 
cles their proofs ? I add that the ecclesiastical theories, being 
more than other false theories the product of a wild imagina- 
tion, can not fail to suffer peculiarly from the study of the nat- 



164: DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 

ural sciences. For that study, exercising in so higii a degree 
the reasoning and supreme faculties, must in a corresponding 
degree repress and chasten the imagination. And let me also 
say, in this connection, that while the mass of men construct 
their God out of their dreams and delusions, they who study 
the natural sciences are carried up through certainties to the 
certain Grod. The one imagine and the other prove the exist- 
ence and character of God. 

Natural science has already done much to weaken and dispel 
superstition. It has put astronomy in the place of astrology, 
and made alchemy and the hunt for the Philosopher's Stone and 
for the ''Universal Solvent," give place to Chemistry. It 
has liberated millions from their degrading bondage to the au- 
thority of sacred books, and left their reason as free to play 
upon the pages of the Bible as upon the pages of any other 
book. It has relieved great numbers of their faith in the Mo- 
saic Cosmogony. To -the progress of natural science do we owe 
it that the Church no longer punishes men for their discoveries 
in natural science. To this progress do we owe it that, in spite 
of Bible authority, there is no more hanging of witches. How 
sad to reflect that the great and good Matthew Hale adminis- 
tered the law of witchcraft ! And how sad to reflect that even 
at this day there are great and good men who, because the wild 
and guilty words are in the Bible, read with reverent submis- 
sion instead of indignation and pity: "Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live !" How strong must be that yoke of superstition 
which can humble and hold the necks of such men! Ages must 
pass away ere it will be broken to pieces. Scotland, dear Scot- 
land! still superstitious, still believes in witches. And only 
one hundred and fifty years ago women were hung in England 
as witches. How deplorably superstitious was the honest and 
able John Wesley ! And how low must have been his view 
of the moral grandeur and exalted and precious uses of the 
Bible ! Else he would not have said : " The giving up of witch- 
craft is in effect giving up the Bible." I add that to this prog- 
ress of natural science do we owe it that I can speak to you 
against the authority of the Bible, and you patiently hear me — 
and yet neither you nor I lose life or liberty for our presump- 
tion. 



DISCOUESE IN 60310:^7. 165 

There may be many Astronomers and Geologists who from 
one consideration and another, consent to go along with the 
churches. But probably there is not on the whole earth one 
eminent Geologist or Astronomer, who entertains an undoubt- 
ing faith in miracles or in any thing which rests upon mere au- 
thority, and is unsusceptible of proof. To every profound natu- 
ral philosopher, a prayer for wet weather or dry is, notwith- 
standing the conditions on which Solomon told God to give 
rain, and notwithstanding the recorded success of Elijah in 
opening and shutting Heaven, an absurdity and the offspring 
of superstition. Eclipses are no longer a terror to Christendom, 
and deprecations of them no longer a part of her prayers. But 
men, instructed in natural science, believe that meteorology is 
as much governed by unchangeable laws as are the motions of 
the planets. I can not doubt that meteorology is yet to be so 
successfully studied that the coming weather will be calculated 
like the coming eclipse ; — not, indeed, with as entire, but nev- 
ertheless, with suificient accuracy. And by the way, what an 
advance it will be in earthly comforts and blessings, and how 
far surpassing in usefulness any of the wonderful discoveries 
and inventions of this age, when the farmer, learning from the 
philosopher the character of the coming season, shall know 
what kind of seed he had best cast into the ground ; — and 
when, too, the mariner shall, by the help of the philosopher, 
know with what weather to 1-ay his account. We owe much 
to science ; but our posterity will owe more. 

I hope it is not inferred from what I have said that I do not 
believe in prayer. I must cease to believe in human nature 
ere I can cease to believe in prayer. There is not on earth a 
more unnatural man than the prayerless man. Want, fear, and 
love urge men as naturally to the Heavenly Parent as they do 
children to the earthly parent. Emphatically and beautifully 
natural was Cornelius, who "prayed to God always." There 
is nothing, in the bringing about of which men have or can 
have an agency, for which they should not at all times be ready 
to pray. Prayer for the crop is rational. Bat prayer for or 
against rain is as irrational as would be prayer for or against an 
eclipse. Prayer for a safe voyage is rational. It is, among other 



166 DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. 

tilings, a prajer for self-possession, wisdom, skill on the part of 
the navigator. But prajer for this or that wind is irrational. 

Let, then, all those who would help clear the way for the 
spread, or rather for the restoration of religion — whether to 
clear it of the priests and of their sort of churches, or of the 
preposterous and reason-insulting claims set up for the sacred 
books, or of any other obstructions — ^let them go to work to 
deepen the study and diffuse the knowledge of the natural sci- 
ences. How soon would the priests disappear were there an 
adequate supply of able lecturers on natural philosophy, and 
a public ear educated to hear them ! How soon then would the 
way be prepared for the preachers of the religion of nature and 
reason to take the place of the priests ! Had we a thousand 
Agassizs and Mitchels to deliver the lectures, the empire of 
American superstitions would soon totter to its fall. All natural 
philosophers should feel it to be their noblest mission and high- 
est obligation to drive superstitions and faith in miracles and 
priestly preachings out of the world, and to drive them out, 
chiefly to the end of getting them out of the way of religion. 

I would not have it inferred from my praises of natural sci- 
ence that I set the intellectual above the moral. I hold the 
moral to be supreme, and the intellectual to be but its servant. 
Buckle, in his wondrously learned and grand writings on civil- 
ization, holds that "intellectual excellence " is more productive 
of "real good" than is "moral excellence:" and he holds this 
for the reason that while intellectual knowledge is ever increas- 
ing, the great moral truths, such as doing good to others, loving 
your neighbor as yourself, and forgiving your enemies, are not 
added to, and are the same that they always have been. I an- 
swer that they need neither multiplication nor change. They 
but need to be more faithfully applied. And when, with the 
help of increased "intellectual excellence," and the freedom 
from bigotry and superstition coming of it, they shall be ap- 
plied a thousand fold more effectively, it Vvill then be seen that 
" intellectual excellence " is not of more value than " moral ex- 
cellence;" or, in other words, that the head is not more import- 
ant than the heart. An old moral truth may have such great 
value that the more faithful and able enforcing of it shall make 
it worth more than numberless great intellectual discoveries. 



DISCOUKSE IN BOSTON. 167 

If Buckle means only, as perhaps he does, that hitherto "moral 
exceljence " has done less than intellectual excellence for man- 
kind, I am not disposed to dissent from him. But it must be 
understood that such "moral excellence" has been largely made 
up of superstitious trash, and that the " intellectual excellence " 
to make the discrimination, has been lacking. 

But I must pass on to notice some of the inquiries which will 
grow out of this Discourse. 

Will there, ivhen the priests are gone, be still a demand for 
preachers f Oh ! yes, greater than ever ! What will they jy/^each f 
Will they, like the priests, spend the time in telling their hearers 
what religion is ? Oh ! no ; a minute in a month will suffice for 
that ! In a dozen words they can say that loving God supreme- 
ly and our neighbor as ourself ; or, more briefly, that being true 
to ourself; or, still more briefly, that being ourself, is religion. 
But the question remains. What will they preach ? They will 
preach duties. They will tell their hearers what religion calls 
for in the heart and life. This is what men need to hear, in- 
stead of sermons to show that religion consists in this and thftt 
doctrine and in this and that crotchet. Why do thousands 
flock to hear Henry Ward Beecher ? It is not only nor mainly 
because he is so eloquent and so marvelously gifted. It is be- 
cause he tells his hearers so much of what religion calls for, 
and consumes so little of their time with those fanciful and su- 
perstitious creeds whicb with most persons make up both warp 
and woof of religion. The men who most love to see the no- 
ble Cheever strike his gigantic blows for Freedom give no credit 
for them to his ecclesiasticism ; but they give it all to his relig- 
ion, or, in other words, to his love of God and man. 

And what shall we do for churches when the present ones shall 
have died out with the priests f We shall have infinitely better; 
for we shall then have churches in which reason will do as 
much to enlighten and elevate, as superstition does in the pres- 
ent churches to darken and degrade. 

And what will become of the Bible when men shall cease to take 
it as an authority, and to worship it as a fetish, and to possess and 
prize it as a charm or an amulet f Rather ask what will become 
of it in the mean time and during the superstitious regard for it. 
For there is no little danger that an age of growing intelligence, 



168 ^ DISCOURSE IN B03T0K. 

disgusted with the exaggerated claims for the Bible, will reject 
it. But when this book shall, like any other book, be submit- 
ted to human judgment, and men shall feel at liberty to dis- 
criminate between the merits of its different parts — as, for in- 
stance, between the incredible story of Jonah and the whale, 
and the felt truth of the Sermon on the Mount — then will it be 
a new and an inestimable blessing. When they shall feel entire- 
ly free to accept one part of it and to reject another, on the sole 
ground that they believe in the one part and not in the other, 
then will the Bible exert a power infinitely greater than before — 
and a power for good only, and not as before for evil also. 
When the matchless inspirations and sublimities of the Bible 
shall stand no longer in authority and superstition but in reason 
and truth only, then they will no longer be made of but the 
same account with the false and foolish things mixed up in the 
same pages with them. And then the reader of the Bible will 
open his understanding .and his heart to these inspirations and 
sublimities all the more freely and widely from being no longer 
Under the conscious obligation to accept along with them the 
silly story of the dry path through the Eed Sea, and the revolt- 
ing and disgusting stories of God's approval of polygamy, and 
of the murder of innocent women and children, l^ow, good 
men feel that they would lose the Bible, were they to lose their 
confidence in the least part of it. But then they would feel 
that they still have the Bible, notwithstanding that here and 
there are passages unworthy a place in it. 

Luther and his fellow-reformers nobly stood forth for the 
right of private judgment. What a pity that they and their 
successors were not more consistently, comprehensively, and 
perseveringly faithful to it. Then had Protestantism been the 
blessing and glory of the whole earth. But, essentially, it soon 
sunk down to the low level of Koman Catholic superstitions — 
and there it still lies. With no more impunity can the Ameri- 
can Protestant than the American Catholic dissent from the ec- 
clesiastical standards. For such dissent the one is hurled out 
of the Church as quickly as the other. The Protestant boast 
of the right of private judgment is utterly groundless. Every 
authority-religion is necessarily incompatible with such right. 
It is owing to the progress of science and civilization — a prog- 



DISCOURSE IN BOSTON. \ 169 

ress continually resisted by ecclesiasticism — that either Protest- 
antism or Catliolicism is tliis day restrained from repeating its 
bloody and enormous crimes. The superstitious religionist — 
or, in other words, he who receives his religion upon authority — 
tolerates no dissent from his religion. If in the circumstances 
and under the influences that Calvin was, he will, like Calvin, 
consent to the burning of the dissenter. All this comes of his 
belief that his whole bundle of religious views and theories — 
every line and letter in it — is certainly true, because certainly 
attested by the miraculous interpositions of Heaven. But how 
quickly this obstinate — obstinate because blind — confidence be- 
gins to relax when the rays of reason and knowledge fall upon 
his bundle ! And this is not only because the rays reveal his 
errors, but because reason and knowledge are as modest and 
hesitating as superstition and ignorance are conceited and dog- 
matizing. Keason and knowledge are conscious of their fallible 
workings ; and therefore do they tolerate differences of opinion. 
They inspire difiidence as much as ignorance does positiveness. 
As a general rule men are confident in proportion to their ignor- 
ance and unreasonableness, and lose their confidence as they 
advance in knowledge and reasonableness. It is not because 
of his zeal that a good man sinks into a fanatic. Zeal in a 
good cause can not be excessive. The opponent of Slavery and 
Intemperance can not be too zealous. It is the combination of 
ignorance with zeal that makes the fanatic. Enlighten the ig- 
norance, and the conceit and dogmatism, bigotry and intoler- 
ance, recklessness and destructiveness, of which fanaticism is' 
compounded, all pass away. 

I value the Bible above every other book. I would not ex- 
change it for all other books. And yet I am free to say that a 
man had better throw away the Bible than retain it as an au- 
thority. A conventional and false morality is the product of 
authority -books and authority-religions. Hence it is that while 
the religion of nature and reason utterly and sternly forbid 
slavery and war, land monopoly and the drinking of intoxi- 
cating liquors, and the oppressions of woman, even very re- 
ligious people (after the ecclesiastical type) can go for them all. 
Their morality is as unreasonable and unnatural as is their re- 
ligion. 



170 DISCOUESE IK BOSTON". 

Finally^ what will hecome of Jesus lohen the age of superstition 
shall he past^ and the priesthood and the authority of the Bible shall 
he no more? I answer, that when men shall cease to degrade 
him by childishly thinking either the better or the worse of him 
for the miracles and superstitions connected with his name, then 
will Jesus have in their eyes a new preciousness and a far high- 
er glory. When their great use of him shall be to study him 
in the light of those wondrous words in which he spake as 
never man spake, then will this sublimest and veriest God-man 
be known in all the earth, and his name everywhere be full of 
power and blessedness and salvation. Oh ! fear not that the in- 
terest in Jesus will decline as the religion of nature shall pre- 
vail I He who is the model and perfection of human nature 
can not fail to become dearer to men as they become less super- 
stitious and unnatural, more reasonable and natural. 

I close with reafi&rming the supreme importance of religion. 
I refer not to the next life. That is but the continuation of this 
and we begin there just where we leave off here. If we are 
upon low planes here, we shall enter upon low planes there. 
If here we sustain high relations to wisdom and goodness, we 
shall there also. It is to the uses of religion for this life that I 
refer — for this life, in which we have seen and proved it to be 
the great balance-wheel, without which all falls into disorder, 
confusion, and ruin ; in which we have seen and proved it to 
be the strongest tie between human hearts, and the only tie be- 
tween human hearts and God's heart. Painful is it to reflect 
how religion has been hindered and held back by sujDcrstition 
and its priesthoods. But joyful is it to see that knowledge, 
which is as fatal to superstition and its priesthoods as they are 
to religion, is at last beginning to spread in such forms of cer- 
tainty and common-sense and practical usefulness, as warrant 
the belief that it will surely, though it may be but slowly, 
cover and bless the whole earth. 



LETTEE TO DOCTOR CHEEYER 



Peterboro, Marcli 6tli; 1863. 
Rev. Dr. G-. B. Cheever, Kew-York: 

My Dear Sir : I have read jour review of Bisliop Colen- 
so's Criticisms on the Pentateuch. 

That men can not believe in God without believing "in every 
part of the Scriptures" — "in their perfect and infallible truth 
and certainty" — is, as I was aware, a doctrine of most of the 
churches. Nevertheless I was somewhat surprised to find that 
this exceedingly harsh doctrine has your sanction. 

I readily admit that, in the sense of loving God, men can not 
believe in him unless they also believe in the great moral prin- 
ciples and precepts of the Bible. It is only the good heart that 
lovingly believes in God. Such a heart, wherever or whenever 
found — ^be it in the depths of Africa or antiquity — never fails 
to respond to those principles and precepts. But there are 
large po«:tions of this book, belief or unbelief in which is a 
purely intellectual exercise. "Whether a particular battle is or 
is not in all respects rightly described in it is a question of evi- 
dence. Precisely the same kind or degree of evidence may not 
come before all who are gathering it. And even if there should, 
nevertheless from the difference between them, constitutional 
as well as educational, they might not be able to arrive at the 
same conclusion. Half the jurors believe that the evidence is 
sufficient to convict the accused, and the other half do not. 
One man can resist the multiplied proofs that the human race 
has existed on the earth more than six thousand years, and an- 
other is obliged to yield to them. To say that some persons 
are so prejudiced against the Bible as to be incapable of decid- 
ing fairly or according to evidence, is but to open the door for 



172 LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 

the reply that some persons are so partial to it that they can not 
decide impartially on any thing in it. Nevertheless, whatever 
may be the play of prejudice or partiality in solving this ques- 
tion about the battle, it remains true that it must be solved by 
means of evidence. But the question whether we shall lovingly 
believe in God finds its solution in the affections of the heart 
rather than in evidence — overflowing and convincing as is the 
evidence. Insist, I care not how intolerantly, that all men shall 
believe in essential and eternal goodness. He is a bad man who 
does not believe in it. But do not condemn men for believing 
or disbelieving in that which with a good heart they may 
either believe or disbelieve in. 

Perhaps you will say that there is not this room, which I 
claim therb is, for an honest difference of judgment. Perhaps 
you will say that here is no occasion for summoning and sifting 
witnesses ; and that the miracles of the Bible prove beyond all 
possible question the truth of every part of the Bible. I might 
admit that whoever had the miracles needed no more proof of 
what they prove, and had no right to call for more. But we 
have only the record of the miracles ; and this record, it must 
be borne in mind, can prove nothing until itself is proved. 
Moreover, as we are favored with no miracles for proving the 
truth of the record, we are obliged to set about proving it in 
the common method of proving records. I do not forget that 
the practice is to cite the miracles for the truth of the Bible, and 
the Bible for the truth of the miracles. But this glaring in- 
stance of vicious circular reasoning forcibly reminds one of the 
servant who, in answer to his master's quickly successive in- 
quiries for the harrow and the plow, said that the harrow 
was with the plow and the plow with the harrow. 

It is much insisted on that whoever really believes in one 
part of the Bible believes in every other part of it. It is true 
that he, who really believes in the inculcations of justice and 
mercy in one part of the Bible, must, from the nature of things, 
believe in the like inculcations in other parts of it. But surely 
there is no such natural connection between all parts of the 
Bible, as makes belief in some of them necessitate belief in the 
others. It is not a necessity in the nature of things, that belief 
in the story of Samson should go along with belief in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. In the justice and love which Jesus taught 



LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 173 

I am compelled, by the nature of things — by my own nature — 
to believe. But I am under no such compulsion to believe that 
he was born here rather than there — this year rather than that. 
To believe in the justice and love, I need not go out of myself 
for evidence ; but I must do so in order to believe in the other. 
The testimony of my heart suf&ces in the former case ; but in 
the latter I must seek for other and outward testimony. It 
will be said that if we are not sure of the truth of what the Bi- 
ble says of the birth of Christ, we can not be sure that it truly 
ascribes to him such high and heavenly utterances. I admit 
we can not be. Nevertheless, of the utterances and their match- 
less power — and this is the great point — we are sure. And 
sure too are we that the utterer, whatever his name, whenever 
or wherever born, spake as " never man spake," and stood upon 
an immeasurably higher plane of life than man ever stood upon 
before. I am not entirely certain when or where Shakspeare 
was born, nor that he wrote the plays ascribed to him. But I 
am certain of the plays and of their power to stir the soul ; and 
certain am I also that whoever, whenever, wherever he was 
that wrote them, he was incomparably the greatest of all known 
dramatists. And now, compared with these certainties, what 
else is there in all this connection of any value ? 

It is often said that we must believe in the possibility of the 
miracles, because the miracles Jesus wrought are needed to 
prove his divinity. It is his words that prove his divinity. 
The power to work miracles can be claimed for any man, and 
with such evidence as would convince multitudes. But there 
has been only one man from whom the divine words attributed 
to Jesus could have proceeded. The celebrated Brahmin, Eam- 
mohun Eoy, omitted the miracles from his translation of the 
New Testament, for the reason that the Jewish miracles being 
so infinitely surpassed in wondrousness by the Hindoo miracles, 
would serve rather to disparage than exalt the precious and 
sublime truths with which they stand connected. Then, again, 
it is so difficult to prove the truth of ancient miracles to those 
who deny the truth of modern miracles. How can one who, 
requiring evidence for all his beliefs, refuses faith in the lique- 
faction of the blood of St. Januarius, give his assent to a mira- 
cle far back in the depths of antiquity ? The miracle in the 
former case is attested by known and living witnesses, but in 



174 LETTER TO DK. CHEEVER. 

the latter by unknown and dead ones. How can he then, pro- 
vided he be swayed less by superstition than by evidence, ut- 
terly reject the former miracle, and be entirely sure of the lat- 
ter one ? 

I wish with all my heart that you would be content to teach 
only the one true religion, which you do teach, and to leave it 
to others to teach the nominal and mistaken religions. This 
one true or natural religion is the same in all lands and all ages. 
It is this which made beautiful and sublime the lives of Confu- 
cius, Socrates and Plato. It is this which shone preeminently, 
ay, culminated, in the life of Jesus. It is of this that your own 
honest, earnest, strong life comes. It is the religion of human 
nature ; and it is inspired by the Author of all nature. It is as 
simple as it needs to be in order to be the religion of the simple 
masses. The unlearned can both understand and practice it. 
Thousands of the slaves, who are now coming forth from the 
great American Prison-House, prove that they who know 
nothing else may nevertheless know this religion. 

Greatly do they err who suppose that Jesus was the author 
of a religion. He taught no other than this religion of nature, 
which great and good men of all the climes and all the centu- 
ries had taught before. He but summoned men to be true to 
the old religion — ^to the demands or religion of their own 
unchanged and unchangeable nature. This nature he recog- 
nizes to be their sufficient instructor in their religious duties ; 
and hence does he inquire of them : " Why judge ye not even 
of yourselves what is right?" 

I said that this religion is simple. Paul makes it nothing 
else than to "love thy neighbor as thyself;" and Jesus sums it 
all up in doing as we would be done by. That to Him who 
made us capable of this equal love, and whose name is '' Love," 
we owe supreme love, is an irresistible inference. 

But although there is only one true religion, there are innu- 
merable conventional religions. It is only a very small propor- 
tion of men who have the true religion. A very large propor- 
tion have a conventional one. Even those who have the true 
religion have, with comparatively few exceptions, a conventional 
religion also. Meet with a Hindoo or Persian or Turk who 
has the true religion or, in other words — a heart to deal justly 
with his neighbor in all things — and, with scarce an instance to 



LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 175 

the contrary, you find that lie combines with, it a conventional 
religion drawn from his Sacred Books. So too it is but a very 
small proportion of the religiously just men of Christendom, be 
they Jews or Gentiles, who to their true or natural religion do 
not add some one of the Mse and artificial religions, which are 
claimed to be authorized by Jewish writings. Do not under- 
stand me to say that the true religion is not also to be found in 
the Yedas, the Zenda vesta, the Koran, and the Bible. Each 
inculcates it — the Bible with infinitely more clearness, fullness 
and power than does any of the other Sacred Books. Never- 
theless, from each of them are materials drawn to build up un- 
natural and false religions. 

I do not forget that they who unite with the true religion a 
conventional one make the latter an essential part of the form- 
er. Yery certain is it that they do so who draw their conven- 
tional relfgion from the Bible. This is manifestly the case 
with yourself. But these conventional religions contain much 
that is at war with the natural or true religion — much that is 
repugnant to the moral sense produced by the latter. Even 
the conventional religion made up from the Bible, is obnoxious 
to this censure. For instance, it requires us to believe that 
God loved Jacob and hated Esau, "being not yet born, neither 
having done any good or evil." Will it be said that he loved 
the one and hated the other for what they would become ? But 
Jacob became a mean man and Esau a magnanimous one. 
Again, it requires us to believe that God gave Saul's wives into 
David's bosom, and laid him under obligations of gratitude for 
it. And, again, it requires us to believe that there may be upon 
God's authority wholesale slaughters of women and children. 

Alas ! the innumerable and appalling proofs in all ages of the 
disparaging and neutralizing of the natural or true religion by 
Coupling with it a conventional and false religion I The Eev. 
Dr. Thomas Worcester of Boston is reputed to be a very good 
man. Kevertheless, he admits that until very recently he be- 
lieved " Slavery to be a good thing " — in other words, the sys- 
tem, which forbids marriage and parental rights and all rights, 
and markets men as beasts, "to be a good thing." Whence 
did he derive this belief? Evidently not from his natural or 
true religion, but from the conventional and false one which he 
had unhappily combined with it. All over the Southern half 



176 LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 

of our country, and extensively over the ISTortliern half also, 
Slavery is held to be right, on the ground that the Bible makes 
it right. I agree with you that the Bible condemns it. But 
good men differ at this point ; and bad men so read it as to suit 
themselves. The natural religion — the religion of doing as you 
would be done by — ^instantly and utterly forbids slavery. No 
man would be a slave. And, were there no pro-slavery con- 
ventional religion in which their conscience could find shelter, 
few could brace themselves up to be slaveholders, and none 
would be allowed to be. Thrice happy for the interests of 
freedom and humanity that you read the Bible to be against 
slavery ! But, alas ! should you in some new light shed upon 
its meaning, come to read it otherwise, then, though all nature 
cries out trumpet-tongued against the abomination, you would 
be for it ! For with you that Book is above all nature. Or if 
you prefer it, that Book is with you the supreme and 'authorita- 
tive interpreter of nature. 

In my reference to miracles I did not deny their possibility. 
I agree with you that your conventional religion (I speak not 
now of your true one) needs miracles to authenticate it. I add 
that there is not a little of beautiful fitness in proving the 
religion which is a war upon nature by miracles which are also 
a war upon nature. On the other hand, you will agree with me 
that if the true religion is the simple and obvious thing which 
I have defined it to be, miracles are no more needed to prove 
it than to prove the sun in the heavens. 

This breaking up of the churches, which has begun in our 
day, does, I confess, bring no sorrow to my heart. Her way 
must be clean swept of them before Truth can " have free course 
and be glorified." They are the bulwarks of superstition in- 
stead of religion. They are huge conventionalisms, which have 
usurped the place of nature, and the place of the simple, rational 
churches of Jesus Christ. They are, and none the less effect- 
ively because unintentionally, the great enemies of human prog- 
ress, human holiness, and human happiness. I rejoiced to see 
right feeling for the slave — in one word, religion — ^break up the 
Baptist Church and the Methodist Church. For this breaking 
up not only proves that religion finds hearts in these churches 
which she can work upon, but it awakens the reasonable hope 
that large portions of their members will continue to improve 



LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 177 

and to go onward and upward until thej shall at last have 
eliminated from their creeds all the conventional and artificial, 
and be prepared to take part in building up the church of the 
one true religion. And now I rejoice to see that science is be- 
ginning to break up the Church of England. It would be an 
entirely reasonable expectation, that the Baptist and Methodist 
Churches, characterized as they are by a wider diffusion of 
piety than of learning, might be torn asunder by a religious 
question. As reasonably would it be expected that science 
might make breaches in the Church of England — a Church in 
which there are so many who appreciate science — a Church 
which, notwithstanding the much heartfelt and holy worship in 
it, is nevertheless more distinguished for its learning than for 
its piety. The only way to have held back Colenso and the 
Authors of the celebrated Essays and Reviews from being 
disturbing forces in the Church of England was to have held 
them back from Geology, Astronomy, and the other fields of 
science. And the only way to prevent others from following 
them and becoming even disrupting forces in that Church, is to 
roll back the wheels of civilization. To secure the Bible from 
all possible criticism, they will have to be rolled back not only 
to the comparatively recent date, when belief in God's authority 
for polygamy and the most savage warfare was well-nigh uni- 
versal ; but they will have to be rolled back to those early 
centuries, when none doubted that the Sun and the Moon were 
made but to be candles for the Earth. 

You ought not to wonder at the modern growth of infidelity. 
It is infidelity to conventional and superstitious religions — to 
religions unadapted to modern times. Ages, which believed in 
Astrology, Alchemy, and the hanging of witches, and the wild- 
est doctrines and usages of an all-swaying superstition, could, 
of course, and very consistently and easily, resign themselves 
to such religions. But it is not strange that an age, which puts 
Astronomy in the place of Astrology, and Chemistry in the 
place of Alchemy, and enlightened laws in the place of fanati- 
cal traditions, and which is coming up rapidly out of the slough 
of ignorance and superstition toward the summits of science, 
should be weary of such religions and impatient to throw them off. 

You long for the enlightenment and blessedness of the whole 
earth. So do I. But it is mainly in very different ways that 



ITS LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 

we seek to accomplisli it. You would supplant with the Jew- 
ish Sacred Books the Sacred Books of all other peoples. I, on 
the contrary, would call upon the disciples of Mohammedanism 
and of all the other religions to learn, love, and practice that 
one religion of reason, nature, and Jesus, which is common to 
all these Books. 

How vain the hope that the Turks, the Persians, the Chinese, 
or Hindoos will ever consent to cast upon their most cherished 
names and writings the contempt which they would cast upon 
them should they ackDowledge the Jewish Books to be true 
and their own to be false ! But how reasonable the hope that, 
as all shall come to know, love, and practice the one true reli- 
gion, the interest of all in their respective Sacred Books, save 
only in those portions of them which partake of and illustrate 
the essence of that religion, will pass away forever ! 

The churches must go down before the powers of religion 
and science. Their walls are not impervious to the heavenly 
influences of the one, nor have they strength to resist the in- 
creasingly mighty assaults of the other. And as surely as these 
churches shall go down, others will take their places, that will 
teach and illustrate the religion of reason and nature ; and that 
will know men not by their theological metaphysics, and mys- 
teries, but solely as the Grreat Teacher of the religion of nature 
and reason requires, " by their fruits." But these churches of 
a conventional religion will linger for ages — Science is not yet 
ripe enough, nor diffused enough, to perform its part in over- 
throwing them. A portion of the scientific men who concern 
themselves about religion, had embraced their conventional reli- 
gion before their minds were stored with science and their hab- 
its of exacting legitimate and ample evidence for their beliefs 
were formed. Such will be like to live and die in the super- 
stition that their religion is too sacred to be put upon trial. 
Then a much larger portion of the men of science, though de- 
spising this superstition, do, like other men, care for the public 
favor and the advantages that come of it. Hence they conclude 
to drift along with the superstition, instead of exercising the 
courage to expose and overthrow it. Not until science shall 
be far more spread through the masses, and not until it shall 
become so sound and uncompromising, as to require all things, 
and that too even in the department of religion, to be proved, 



LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 179 

will a large share of the scientific men strike boldly at the ab- 
surdities in the religious systems. But they will do so then. 
For then it will not be unpopular to do so ; and therefore not 
unsafe to their interests. Then they will find willing hearers — 
a gibd soil to cast the seeds of skepticism into. Skeptics are 
much dreaded. Nevertheless, the world will never have its 
race of sound believers until it has first had its race of enlight- 
ened and honest skeptics. 

In the mean time, however, and whilst science is mustering 
its forces for its final and effectual onset npon these artificial 
and superstitious religions and their churches, here one man 
and there another, who can afford the personal loss of striking 
at hoary and popular errors, and who are willing, for conscience 
and truth's sake, to incur hatred and scorn, must continue their 
protests against identifying religion with things which are no 
part of religion, and with things which misrepresent, conflict 
with, and neutralize it. 

I hope you will not be offended at what I have written ; 
and yet I can not be entirely sure that you will not. For I am 
aware that one part of the orthodox training is, that nothing in 
the whole range of orthodoxy is an open question, or liable to 
a wise and an honest doubt. Hence I was not surprised to find 
you making light of both the sense and the candor of Bishop 
Colenso. 

It is this perfect confidence that in the whole huge bundle of 
beliefs, which make up orthodoxy, be it in Christendom or 
Hindostan or elsewhere, there is not the slightest flaw, nor anght 
which a man sound in both head and heart can find to criticise — 
it is this, which renders religious reformation, be it in Christ- 
endom or Heathendom, so difS.cult and so distant. 

The political economist allows me to confront him. Often 
has a slaveholder heard my Anti-Slavery patiently and kindly. 
Often so has a rumseller heard my Temperance. But when I 
speak on religion, many of my neighbors, and those of them 
too who for thirty or forty years have heard me quite willingly 
on all other subjects, refuse to hear me. They are too civil 
and too kind to say either that I am foolish or dishonest ; and 
yet, when religion is my theme, they can hardly help feeling 
that I am one or the other, if not indeed both ; so almost im- 
possible is it for them to conceive that a man can have both 



180 LETTER TO DR. CHEEVER. 

sense and candor, or even eitlier, wlio ventures a doubt on any 
thing in orthodox theology. 

Theology ! Theology ! ! Oh ! how the poor world has in all 
ages been cursed by it ! But gradually, though slowly, one 
thing after another escapes from its thraldom to thedbgy. 
Now it is Geology, and now it is Astronomy ; and by and by, in 
the progress of science and civilization, religion itself will escape 
from it. 

With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 



THE GOOD SEE: THE BAD ARE BLIND, 

DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO, MAY 3, 1863. 



Jesus says that " tlie pure in heart shall see God." Here is 
the key to the stores of divine knowledge. Purity of heart un- 
locks them. "Keep thyself pure," says Paul to Timothy. 
This is the way. to clarify the spiritual vision. With the in- 
crease of purity is the increase of spiritual discernment. Why 
is " the path of the just as the shining light that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day" ? Because he continually be- 
comes more and more just, more and more pure, and therefore 
more and more enlightened. Why says Jesus, that doing 
God's will is the way to learn God's truth ? Because the doer, 
becoming thereby better and purer, becomes consequently more 
discerning. Why says the prophet, "Then shall we know if 
we follow on to know the Lord " ? Because at every step in 
that direction our purity, and therefore our knowledge, in- 
creases. Why says the Apostle that " men stumble at the 
word, being disobedient " ? Because, whilst obedience sheds 
light upon the way, disobedience darkens it. The disobedient 
stumble in the darkness which comes of their disobedience. 
But in the light which flows out from obedience, or rather from 
the purity generated by obedience, the word is seen and wel- 
comed. How full of light would be the man who should attain 
to absolute purity I He would be as the " angel standing in 
the Sun." 

We learn from our text — from this power of a pure heart — 
how it is that Jesus was made capable of his wondrous words. 
The words of no one, either before or after him, were so search- 
ing, so spiritual, so sublime. He spake as never man spake. 
His purity explains it. This perfect purity, giving him the 
fullest access to God and the fullest sight and knowledge of 
God, enabled him to speak as God. I say not whence this 



182 THE GOOD SEE : THE BAD AEE BLIND. 

purity. I speak but of its power. And without inquiring how 
else he is one with God, I hold that from his purity he is one 
with him. Nay, Jesus teaches that such purity as his disciples 
are capable of, would bring them also into this oneness. If he 
does not teach it when he says, " I in them and thou in me, 
that they maybe made perfect in one," nevertheless does he not 
teach it when he says, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect " ? His injunction of this 
absolute moral perfectness implies his belief in its possibility. 
And surely whoever attains to this perfectness attains to oneness 
with God — oneness too at that point where alone it is needed, 
and where alone it is possible. Man can not be — does not need 
to be — wise and strong as God, but only sinless and innocent 
as God. 

There are critics who regard the claim of the Son to oneness 
with the Father as an arrogant or at least an ignorant assump- 
tion. They would not, however, had they themselves the 
purity of heart which opens the eye on God and identifies with 
God. 

And do we not learn from our text how also to account for 
the wondrous works as well as the wondrous words of Jesus ? 
I say not that in the record of these works all is literal truth, 
and nothing figurative or fanciful. I say not that there were 
miracles amongst them. I do not believe that Jesus ever per- 
formed a miracle ; that any man ever performed one ; that God 
himself ever performed one. A miracle is a violation or arrest 
of the laws of nature. "Why then should he who is the Author 
of nature be found working a miracle ? — in other words, be 
found warring upon the works of his own hands ? Miracles 
would put anarchy in the place of the government of the Uni- 
verse ; and surely it is not for Him, " with whom is no vari- 
ableness, neither shadow of turning," to set Himself to subvert- 
ing that government. Moreover, God requires us to adjust 
ourselves to his laws, and to find all our duty and all our 
happiness in such adjustment. How then can it be supposed 
that he would himself introduce uncertainty into these laws, 
and a corresponding uncertainty into our sense of the necessity 
of obeying them ? Is it for him to strip them of the honor of 
being unchangeable and eternal, and to degrade them from a 
certain to an uncertain rule of conduct ? I believe that Jesus 



THE GOOD SEE : THE BAD ARE BLIND. 183 

did nothing contrary to but every thing in accordance with 
these laws. I beheve, too, that were we on his moral plane, or 
in other words, had we his purity of heart, we too should be 
capable of doing such wondrous works as he did. And might 
I not add on his own authority, even " greater works than 
these " ? What can be wrought on that plane — what, for in- 
stance, is the power there of the moral over the material — we 
know not now, but perhaps we shall "know hereafter." This 
much, however, we should feel assured of even now — that the 
higher the moral plane on which the worker stands, the more 
does he seek to work by law, and the less is he inclined to at- 
tempt miracles and jugglery ; the more does he cling to the 
whole law, physical, mental, and moral, and the less accessible 
is he to pleas, be they in behalf of the advantage of man or the 
glory of Grod, for departing from it. 

It is true that the wonders Jesus is said to have wrought 
might have appeared to the beholders, and even to ourselves, 
to be supernatural — when, indeed, they were but simply natural. 
For not only not the earlier and ignorant, but not even the 
latest and enlightened generations know all the phenomena and 
power of nature. Nevertheless it should be remembered that 
the greater the recorded wonder, which challenges our faith, the 
more proof should we require that it actually occurred. It is 
not enough, in order to our believing in them, to argue that 
the "miraculous works " of Jesus were all according to natural 
laws. It should first be proved that there were such works ; 
and that finding them on some old pages is evidence that 
there were. With a triumphant air do some defenders of the 
" Christian miracles " argue that they were done according to 
natural law. But whether they were done at all, is the first 
question. It is time enough to have the explanations of the 
fact after the proof of the fact. But it is only by outraging all 
the laws of evidence that we can become sicre of the occurrence 
of the " Christian miracles." And why should these laws be 
ignored in the department of Theology any more than else- 
where ? 

There are many who, disbelieving that Jesus is the essential 
God, doubt the truth of some of his words, and make light of 
some of his warnings. These doubters can be measurably 



184 THE GOOD see: the bad aee blind. 

replied to without going into the discussion of the question 
whether his nature, though "filled with all the fullness of God," 
is other than a simply human nature. For, in the first place, his 
spiritual teachings commend themselves to our reason so far as 
in its undeveloped state it can comprehend them ; and in the 
second place, where they exceed its comprehension, they are to 
be respected as the teachings of One whose spiritual discernment 
of spiritual things is proportioned to his matchless purity. 

Our reason teaches that a great change in the common charac- 
ter of men is necessary. But well is it for us to have Jesus 
add that this change must be so radical as to merit the name of 
a New-Birth ; and that this New-Birth is impossible without 
the help of the Divine Spirit. Eeason sees in the light of 
nature another life. It sees a heaven and a hell. But this does 
not render useless the testimony of Jesus at this point. The 
report which he brings of the revelations made to his purity 
and to his sight of Qod, serves both to confirm the deductions 
of our reason and to add to them. It is reasonable to listen to 
what Jesus tells us of the future blessedness of the righteous 
and the future misery of the wicked. Is it said, in order to 
shake confidence in his communications, that he does not claim 
to have knowledge at all points ? A man's not being a mathe- 
matician does not impeach his moral knowledge ; nor should it 
be argued, from Christ's confessed ignorance of the time of some 
future event, that there is any lack in his stores of spiritual 
wisdom for our use. Let then the righteous take comfort and 
the wicked take warning from what Jesus says of the future 
life. Some words more in this connection. But. few of the 
righteous should take much thought of the heaven beyond this 
life. Most of them should be content with the heaven that is 
here, and which is incidental to their labors of love here. The 
happiness which, by a sure law of reflection, comes back to our 
hearts from the hearts we have made happy, is quite enough 
for us in this pilgrimage. Most good men should be too busy 
too brave, and too self-forgetful to indulge in the weakness of 
longing for heaven. Here and there are good men shut out 
and cut off from the world by disease, oppression, imprison- 
ment and other causes. Their earthly prospects are all blotted . 
out, and their earthly hopes all crushed. To such it is permitted 



THE GOOD SEE : THE BAD ARE BLIND. 185 

to sigh for heaven. Their poor wearj hearts have no other re- 
fuge. Before such afflicted ones Paul sets the " exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." To such Jesus says : "Let not your 
keart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions." 

" The pure in heart shall see God." This is not the promise 
of a supernatural reward. It is but the declaration of what 
must naturally and necessarily come from being pure. My 
hearers, shall we ever see God? We shall if we are pure 
and not otherwise. ISTot the soundness of our creed, nor our 
connection with the most orthodox church, nor high hopes of 
heaven, can suffice to open our eyes upon the blessed One. 
The consecration of our faculties, inward and outward, to purity 
alone can. The selfish man can not see God, for his low aims 
are at fatal war with purity. He is corrupted and shriveled 
by them as surely as the unselfish man is purified and expanded 
by the deeds and designs of his benevolence. 

Men are lost who do not see God. ' They grope in blindness. 
This nation is lost because it did not see God. I call it lost. I 
hope it will yet be found. It was dead; but I hope it will 
live again. It did not see the avenging God — the Divine 
Nemesis — in the black cloud which had for many years been 
gathering over it. ISTay, it was too blind to see even the clouds, 
much less the cause of them. Yery great was its blindness, be- 
cause it was induced by oppression — by extreme and long-per- 
sisted-in oppression. From the day of its birth it had made 
merchandise of humanity and trafficked in the image of God as 
in hogs and horses. As nothing is so sure to soften the heart 
and clear the eye as sympathy with the poor, so there is nothiug 
that so effectually generates hardness aud blindness as oppres- 
sion of the poor. 

Let me not, however, do injustice to my nation. I used to 
speak of it as the guiltiest of all nations. But I now think 
that I was wrong in doing so. This' nation was the first to un- 
dertake to build on the foundation of equal rights ; and it did 
not count the cost of building on so broad a foundation. What 
were our fathers, that they and they alone should be able to 
build upon it ? They had been fashioned in a school of politics 
mainly European. They saw no wrong in land-monopoly, in 
the governmental license and patronage of the dram-shop, in 



186 THE GOOD SEE : THE BAD ARE BLIND. 

the scanty concession of riglits to woman, in the various med- 
dlings of government with the natural rights of its subjects ; 
and but very few of them saw much wrong in slavery. Indeed 
the great mass of them were, in their political qualifications, 
but little better fitted than Europeans to erect a national struc- 
ture, on the foundation of the equal rights of all. Nor had 
they a religion to this end any better than their politics. Tbeir 
religion was the same with that of Europe, and was, even to a 
greater extent than is that of their descendants, a superstition. 
It was not the religion of humanity. It did not array itself on 
the side of human rights. Ko nation's religion, either in an- 
cient or modern times, ever did so. Scattered individuals, all 
along since Christ, and ajl along before him, had the religion of 
humanity. But no nation, nor any considerable portion of a 
nation, ever had it. That blessedness is not to be until the 
theologies — ^relics of ages of ignorance and superstition — shall 
have passed away. Until then the conventional religion of 
those theologies will effectually hinder the true religion — the 
Christ-religion of doing as you would be done by — the religion 
which goes for man and man's rights — from becoming the reli- 
gion of a nation. 

Other nations — for instance, Mexico, and the South-American 
States, and France — copied our attempt to build on this only 
true foundation. It will not do to say that any of them have 
succeeded. They, like ourselves, have, for the lack of the na- 
tural religion in the place of the theological religion, and for 
the lack of politics corresponding with the natural religion, 
failed. But shall the nations, our own included, who have at- 
tempted to build on the only true foundation, be counted more 
guilty than the nations which have escaped the failure only by 
shrinking from the attempt ? Certainly not. Eather let those 
nations that have tried to build on it be honored for making the 
trial, which other nations had not the virtue and courage to 
make. Better is the drunkard who tries, though in vain, to 
reform himself than the drunkard who is past making the trial. 

Our little church is this afternoon to celebrate the Lord's 
Supper. It is not alone because of the recorded injunction of 
Jesus upon his disciples that we celebrate it. Perhaps, as is 
extensively held, this injunction was upon his cotemporaries 



THE GOOD SEE : THE BAD ARE BLIND. 187 

only ; thougli I do not see why there is not as good reason for 
us, as there was for them, to celebrate it. 

If it is right for the admirers of Washington to come together 
to honor their hero, or for the admirers of Jackson to do so, 
why is it not right for the admirers of one imm.easurably greater 
and dearer than "Washington or Jackson to do likewise ? But 
our highest' reason for celebrating the Lord's Supper is that the 
occasion is preeminently suited to purify our hearts by bring- 
ing him so distinctly and aflPectingiy before our minds. We 
need more purity of heart, that we may see more of God — ay 
that we may see him where now we see him not. No means 
to this increase of purity is so effectual as " looking unto Jesus." 
By perseverance in looking unto Mm, we shall at last attain to 
such a degree of purity and to such a resulting degree of spirit- 
ual vision, as shall enable us to see God in all his works and 
all his ways ; in all his creations and all his providences. 
Then shall we see him not only in the sun and stars, and in 
the sublimities of tbe mountain and the ocean, and the fruitful 
ness of the field whicb waves with food for man and beast, and 
in the flowers which deck the earth ; but we shall also see him 
in the history of the individual and the nation. Then shall we 
see him in the horrors of this surpassingly horrid war, and in 
his judgments upon this surpassingly oppressive nation. And 
then too shall we have in our own bosoms sweet and blessed ex- 
perience of the truth, thai: " the pure in heart shall see God." 



LETTEE TO HEK"ET WAED BEEOHEE. 

"STONEWALL" JACKSOK". 



Peterboro, May 20tli, 1863. 
Eev. Henry Ward Beecher: 

My Dear Sir : I have read in the Independent your column 
on the late " Stonewall" Jackson. I honor him for his earnest. 
ness, sincerity, and devoutness. I grant that he was a deeply 
religions man. But I can not agree with you that his religion 
was of the Christ-type. How can it be in the light of your 
own admission, that he was "the champion of slavery" — the 
champion of that system which denies all right to husband, 
wife, child; all right to resist the ravisher or murderer; and 
which works and whips and markets men as beasts ? How 
can it be in the light of your admission, that " he was fighting 
against the natural rights of man" ? JSTevertheless you declare 
him to be "a rare and eminent Christian." I readily admit 
that even these enormous crimes against justice and humanity 
are compatible with high religiousness. But I can not admit 
that he who is guilty of them is grounded in the Christ-religion: 
and is " eminent" in its graces. For the Christ-religion is sim- 
ply a religion of justice. It does as it would be done by. It 
is for, and not " against the natural rights of man." For it is 
simply the religion of nature. 

I do not wonder that the Churches regard Jackson's as the 
Christ-religion. For the bundle of dogmas, Trinity, Atonement, 
Kesurrection of the Body, Miracles, etc., which they make up 
and hold to be essential to salvation, he deeply believed in. I 
say not whether these dogmas are true or false — originating in 
fancies or in facts. I but say that they are no part of the 
Christ-religion. Natural justice toward God and man — so earn- 
est and entire as to fill the heart and life with its presence and 
power — ^this, and this alone, is the essence and the all of that 
religion. Think not that I look for such justice where the 
Divine Spirit is not at work to produce it. In order to attain 



LETTER TO HENRY WARD BEECHER. 189 

to it, depraved man — man who has run awaj from his nature- 
must be " born. again." 

Jackson had the theology of a Church. But he certainly 
had not a large share of the religion of Christ. Christ was op- 
posed to all the theologies ; for he saw that they all stand in the 
way of the one true religion — the religion of reason and nature. 
A theological, or common Chu.rch religion, is a traditional reli- 
gion, authenticated by miracles and other outward testimonies. 
At the best, it is but a history, and full of all the characteristic 
uncertainty of history. Moreover, if parts of the history, or of 
its accepted interpretation, shall prove false, then, as is held, 
the deceived disciple is lost. Such is the untrustworthy plank 
on which men are urged to embark their all. But Christ's re- 
ligion is no historic nor external t^ing. It cometh not from the 
past, and it " cometh not with observation." It "is within" us. 
It is written by the finger of God in the moral consciousness ; 
and every one, who will listen to God's voice in his soul, will 
know this religion, or, in other words, will know what is right. 
'And why," says Jesus, " even of yourselves judge ye not 
what is right ?" Instead of sending his hearers to Moses, he 
sends them to themselves. Instead of bidding them go to 
priests to get religion interpreted, he tells them to interpret it 
for themselves. Instead of making religious truths a mystery, 
which only the wise and learned can unravel, he thanks his 
Father for having " revealed them unto babes." Instead of 
teaching a religion as fluctuating and uncertain as human testi- 
mony is fluctuating and uncertain, he teaches a religion founded 
and fashioned in human nature, and therefore as unchangeable 
as human nature — a religion the same in all climes and ages, 
because human nature is the same in all climes and ages. In- 
stead of teaching a cabalistic and conventional religion, whose 
rules are hard and impossible to be understood, he teaches the 
natural and reasonable religion which has but one rule, and 
this rule so obvious and simple that all know it, and need noth- 
ing but honesty to apply it. All know how they would be 
done by, and hence all know what to do to others. 

I am amazed that you make so much account of Jackson's 
theological bundle, and of his being " an active member of the 
Presbyterian Church, of which he was a ruling Elder." These, 
in your esteem, suffice to carry him straight to heaven. I had 



190 LETTER TO HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

supposed tliat your strong common-sense and large intelligence 
had long ago lifted you up out of the superstitious faith that 
any such things can carry any man to heaven. I had taken it 
for granted that you believed that it is his character, however 
induced — whether by himself or by Christ, or otherwise — that 
alone qualifies a man for heaven ; so obvious is it, in the light 
of reason, that every man must go to his own place, and that 
what shall be his place must be determined, not by his theology, 
but by his character. But I was mistaken. For in the same 
breath in which you send Jackson to heaven, you argue out for 
him a thoroughly base and abominable character ; even, to use 
your strong and eloquent words, a " comprehensive and funda- 
mental degradation of heart and mind and soul." 

So, since it can not be in ifirtue of his character, it must be 
in virtue of his theology and ecclesiasticism, that you send 
Jackson to heaven. Or am I again mistaken ? Perhaps you 
believe that the death of the body works moral changes ; and 
that, though Jackson died with a bad character, he woke up 
with a good one. 

But, notwithstanding I believe that our character in this life 
is that with which we begin the next, I have hope for " Stone- 
wall" Jackson. And this hope for two reasons. First, I do 
not believe his character to be as bad as you make it. In many 
an instance, slaveholding does hot deprave and debase the whole 
soul. Unconsciousness of its criminality, and a kindly exercise 
of its despotic power, are among the things which leave room 
for the growth of self-respect and other high virtues. Second, 
the Christ-religion will be more clearly seen, and more justly 
judged, in the next life ; and mistaken and guilty, though still 
largely noble souls, like the " Stonewall" Jacksons, will hasten 
to exchange their miserable theologies for it. Nay, I trust that 
our Church-misled hero already begins to see more beauty and 
preciousness in the simple doctrine of doing as we would be 
done by, than in all the dogmas and prayers and rites of his 
corrupt and corrupting Church. 

But I must stop. I meant to write only a few lines. How 
long, oh ! how long, my great-souled brother, must we still wait 
for the open enlistment of your large powers against the the- 
ologies ! I confess that you preach the religion of Jesus, and 
that you preach it with rare force and beauty. But, alas ! how 



LETTER TO HENRY WARD BEECHER. 191 

is this preacliing counteracted by your preaching the theologies 
also ! The cause of truth can not afford to have Henry Ward 
Beecher continue to mix up traditional trash, or even tradi- 
tional sweetness or sublimities, with that religion. She needs 
him to be wholly, and not but partly, on her side. 
With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 



EUlNrEEAL DISCOUESE IE" PETEEBOEO 

June 28, 1863. 



The following is the substance of a part of the argument in 
this discourse : 

" Slowly, but surely, the progress of civilization is emanci- 
pating mankind from the theologies. God hasten the day when 
these huge and hoary structures, which have so long cast their 
baleful, blighting shadows over all the earth, shall be over- 
thrown forever ! God hasten the day when the soul-shriveling 
and degrading, theological, or superstitious age of the human 
family shall give place to its expanding and ennobling, rational, 
or scientific age ! 

The worst obstacles in the way of human improvement, are 
put there by the theologies. For instance, in Europe the Jew- 
ish theology stood out against astronomy. A remarkable fact, 
by the way, that Europe (and America also) instead of making 
a theology for herself, should adopt an Asiatic one ! Astrono- 
mers were persecuted and stopped by this theology. Happily, 
however, they triumphed in the end. They proved that the 
earth, instead of being the principal body in the universe, is 
comparatively but a speck ; and that the sun, moon, and stars 
are something more than mere candles for the earth.* Enough 
has been proved to falsify the very first chapter of the Bible, 
and fling it upon the big heap of outgrown fables and follies. 
So too, did the Jewish theology .stand out against geology. 
It stands out against it still. But it may as well strike its 
colors, for geology has gained the victory. This noble science 
has persevered in searching into the crust of the earth, until it 
has now found in various deposits, of a far earlier date than 
that at which the Jewish theology fixed the beginning of hu- 
man existence, indisputable specimens of the work of man. 
What is more, they have also found here and there portions of 
the bodies of men, who must have lived long before the time 
when, according to the Bible, Adam was created. 



FUNERAL DISCOUESE IN PETERBORO. 193 

One of tlie great battles yet to be fought with the theologies, 
is with their doctrine that God kills his children ; and that 
when they get sick and die, or when they perish from the 
lightning, the earthquake, or the volcano, it is because He 
would have it so, and wills it to be so. So far, indeed, do the 
theologies go in this direction, as to affirm that G-od sends forth 
men to murder men. In the Jewish theology are found re- 
peated instances of his commanding the wholesale slaughter of 
harmless women and innocent children. This theology makes 
him much more the Great Murderer than the Great Father of 
his children. 

Now, reason teaches that God has given map a body which 
should grow and mature, and then continue to exist, subject 
only to the natural laws of decay and death. How long would 
be the earthly life of man, provided he had lived rightly in all 
his generations, we can not tell. It would probably be little less 
than twice the assumed three-score and ten years. It is for him 
to learn to live rightly ; and he must meet the consequences of 
living wrongly. He must keep himself in health and in life. 
God will not do it for him. He must learn to read the warn- 
ings which nature gives of the earthquake and volcano, and to 
devise the utmost securities against thunderbolts and against 
accidents on land and water. He must learn how to cure dis- 
ease, and, what is far more important, how to prevent it. What 
should be the house he dwells in, what his food, and drink, and 
dress, and other things which concern his health, should be his 
habitual, enlightened and earnest inquiry. Greatly deficient, 
however, in all this will he continue to be, until he shall deeply 
and effectually believe that not God, but only man, is responsible 
for premature death. The death, which concludes the natural 
wearing out of the body, is, we admit, of Divine arrangement. 
But never will man hold himself responsible for premature 
death, so long as he believes in a theology which teaches that 
death, be it in childhood or manhood, comes from the absolute 
and unevadable appointment of God. Not until he shall be 
sensible that premature death comes from man's crime, or from 
man's ignorance, (which, in the advancement of the world, be- 
comes more or less criminal,) will he adequately resolve, or 
adequately guard against it. He must believe that such death 
can be prevented ere he will do all in his power to prevent it. 



19i FUNERAL DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO. 

Bible fallacies, in regard to sickness and death, lie must no 
more feel to be in his way than do astronomers and geologists 
now feel to be in their way those Bible fallacies which so long 
and so frowningly confronted them. 

Very little is the physician worth who prescribes, subject to 
the consciously probable or even possible Divine decree, that 
his patients shall die. Of very little worth is any thing that is 
done for life or health, when it is done under the apprehension 
that it has to encounter such a Divine decree. TVe need to set- 
tle it in our minds that Grod wills no sickness and no shorten- 
ing of life. He leaves it to ourselves whether to have or not 
have health, and whether to live or die. Whether man's life 
shall be prolonged, is conditioned on the care which man shall 
take of it. God has blessings for all and curses for none. He 
would have us all live out the natural period of life. It is no 
more his will that we should make no further progress in the 
knowledge of sheltering ourselves from sickness and death, 
than it was his will that our rate of travel, and of the trans- 
mission of messages should be but a few miles an hour, or than 
it was that the expense of making pictures of our faces for our 
children and friends, should exceed the means of the poor. It 
was his will that we should attain to far greater speed in the 
one case, and far greater cheapness in the other ; and we have 
already executed his will so far, as to travel thirty or forty miles 
an hour, and to make the lightning our messenger, and the sun 
our painter. Moreover, he not only paints us for a shilling or 
two, but he paints us with an accuracy infinitely greater than 
can be done by the most expensive and skilful hand. It is 
God's will that we should make as swift progress in the depart- 
ment of health, as in any other department. Theology, not 
God, hinders our way. He has infinite helps and no hindrances 
for us. 

The atheist, in his blindness and folly, tells us that there is 
no God — certainly no benevolent God — no father in heaven. " A 
true God, according to his conceptions of him, would permit 
no sickness and no perils from storms, earthquakes, or volcanoes. 
But there is a God ; and he proves his benevolence as well as 
his wisdom, not in dwarfing his children by doing every thing 
for them and leaving them nothing to do, but by requiring 
them to task to the utmost the large powers He has given them, 



FUNERAL DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO. 195 

SO that they may rise to immeasurable higlits of wisdom and 
usefulness, grandeur and goodness. They should believe that, 
by such tasking of their powers from generation to generation, 
they would at last bring up man to be proof against diseases 
both of the body and the soul. 

Alas, these theologies ! "What drags are they upon human 
advancement I How they hold our faces to the past ! How 
they bind us in the habit of submission to precedent and autho- 
rity ! But for them, how much less, ere this time, of sickness 
and death ? But for their influence upon character, Harvey's 
discovery of the circulation of the blood would not, as is so 
often said, have been rejected by all British physicians over 
forty years of age. But for this influence the physicians of 
Spain (the nation which, more than any other in Christendom, is 
in theological bonds) would not, for nearly two centuries, have 
rejected it. But for this influence the London physicians would 
not have vilified Jenner's discovery of the prevention of small- 
pox ; nor would the London clergymen have denounced it 
from their pulpits as " diabolical." How swift the progress of 
the astronomer and geologist, now that they move on con- 
temptuous of all theological opposition ! What the physician 
needs in order to get abreast them is the like contemptuous- 
ness. 

For the sake of every good thing do we need to get rid of 
the theologies, since it is in the way of every good thing that 
they all stand. Most of all do we need to get rid of them for 
the sake of religion. They are its mightiest hindrance. They 
are this mainly because, from their so plausibly and persistingly 
claiming to be religion, the popular mind comes to confound 
and identify them with religion. The theological sects do 
actually make the ridiculous story of Jonah and the whale an 
essential part of religion. They chng as closely to it as to the 
doctrine of doing as we would be done by. It is true that reli- 
gion, which is simply justice toward God and man, is mixed up 
with the theologies ; but they are no part of it. Especially 
true is it that religion is mixed up with the Jewish theology. 
Nowhere else is it taught so truly and so impressively as in 
the Bible — that collection of the highest inspirations which 
man was ever blessed with — that wondrous book worth more 
than all other books. This would be its preeminent value did 



196 FUNERAL DISCOURSE IN PETERBORO. 

it nothing more tlian tell of Jesus — of that blessed one whom 
to know ; with whose spirit to be imbued ; with whose aims 
to be identified; in whose principles to be established; is 
eternal life. 

Thanks mainly to science, light is fast breaking in upon 
the churches. It is fast streaking their very dense darkness. 
Thousands in them are convinced of the Mseness and absurdity 
of the theologies. But whilst some of them are afraid that the 
expression of this conviction would damage their personal 
interests, others are afraid it would damage religion. Innumer- 
able good persons fall in with the miserable policy of exempt- 
ing the Bible from criticism, and contend that the book is too 
holy to be criticised — nay, that it is infidelity and blasphemy 
to criticise it. They sufier its false lines to be called true, for 
fear that, if they do not, others will call its true lines false. 
They are anxious to save the Bible. But they can not save it 
by such folly. It can be saved only by itself — only by its 
own truth — and that will save it. The best service that can 
be rendered to the Bible, is to rid it of its nonsense and false- 
hood ; to winnow the chaff from the wheat ; to separate the 
dross from the gold. 

Yery sad is it, that our religious teachers persist in inculcat- 
ing and in exacting faith in every line of the Bible. They do 
this, notwithstanding they know that science has exploded 
parts of it. They do it, notwithstanding advancing knowledge 
has shaken their own faith in miracles and in such alleged facts 
as Grod's commanding the wholesale slaughter of the innocent^ 
and putting Saul's wives into David's bosom. This persistency, 
as disgraceful and demoralizing to the teachers as it is darken- 
ing and deluding to their hearers, will not, however, last always. 
The day is coming when science shall have lifted up the human 
family to far higher planes, and when the office of the religious 
teacher will no longer be to uphold a theology and a supersti- 
tion, but to preach the religion of reason and nature. This 
religion, which Jesus preached, will again be preached. Here 
and there it is now preached. Jesus will yet be known. As 
yet he is misunderstood. But in proportion as science scatters 
the theologies and the superstitions he will be understood." 



THE 



"CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR." 



Peterboeo, April 4, 1864. 

EeY. 0. B. FROTHINaHAM: 

My Dear Sir : Mj attention lias been called to a paper en- 
titled "Christian Circular." It is dated New- York, March 21, 
1864, and is numerously signed by clergymen of various de- 
nominations. I am not surprised at my failure to find amongst 
the names to it either your own or Dr. Cheever's. O. B. 
Frothingham cares little for any of the theologies. It is the 
absolute religion which interests him. And Gr. B. Cheever 
would sooner consent to lose his life than be seen rallying men 
to his theology in circumstances which would make such rally- 
ing amount to an ignoring of any of the claims of the absolute 
religion. 

Some say it is one thing, and some say it is another, which 
has most hindered human happiness. But, in after-ages — too 
probably in long after-ages — all will agree that nothing has so 
much obstructed the upward way of mankind as the substitu- 
tion of historical and ecclesiastical religion for absolute reli- 
gion, of conventional for natural religion, of merely local 
for the one universal religion — in a word, of man-made for 
God-made religion. It is customary for the nations to claim 
for their theology or bundle of dogmas, the credit of their ad- 
vancement from lower to higher stages of civilization. But 
they should not. The credit should be given to religion. That 
the Mohammedan, or the Hindoo, or even the Christian theology 
has done great good is to be doubted. It is true that there is 
more or less of religion in them all. But this does not j astify 



198 THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 

the claim of tlieir elevating influence on their respective na- 
tions. Least of all should that claim be set up in the light of 
the fact that there is so much in them all to neutralize religion. 
The good done by the Bible is beyond measurement. But this 
is owing to its happy inculcations of righteousness and love — 
not to the theological systems built upon it. It is religion — the 
religion taught in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere in 
the Bible — the religion of nature — the religion that is -un- 
changeable and eternal, the same on earth and in heaven — it 
is this which does the good. Those things either in, or con- 
strued to be in, the Bible which find neither foundation nor 
response in nature, and which do to so great an extent make 
■up both warp and woof of the Christian theologies do no 
good. No small evidence, by the way, that these theologies 
are hurtful is that generally they who make most account of 
them are the most destitute of religion. None, for instance, lay 
more stress upon them than the master-spirits in our Slave 
States. But amongst whom was there ever less religion? — that 
is, less regard for human rights and righteousness ? 

This "Christian Circular" to which I referred is a very strik- 
ing and painful illustration of both the fact and the pernicious- 
ness of substituting an ecclesiastical or traditional religion for 
the natural or absolute religion. 

For many reasons do I love New- York. Nevertheless, I am 
compelled to admit that she is a heathen city. Perhaps she is 
not more so than Philadelphia or Boston. However that may 
be. New- York is a heathen city. " Colored persons allowed in 
these cars,''^ implying the well-known fact that there are cars in 
New-York in which colored persons are not allowed, proves it 
to be a heathen city. The spirit of caste is the spirit oi 
heathenism. The Christ-religion recognizes a brother or a 
sister under whatever skin and in whatever circumstances. The 
public sentiment, out of which grew, her last July's assault 
upon her innocent colored people — an assault entirely un- 
provoked, and, for that reason amongst others, more depraved 
and more malignantly murderous than any the world had ever 
before seen — proves that she is a heathen city. Moreover, the 
public sentiment of New- York was mighty .to encourage the 
Pro-Slavery Kebellion, which is wasting our wealth and shed- 
ding our blood. Indeed, but for their hojDe of vast and effective 



THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 199 

sympathy in tliat city the rebels might not have ventured to go 
forward. But what was it that created this bad public senti- 
ment? I will not say that it was the prevalence there of the 
ecclesiastic or dogmatic religions. I will however say that it 
would not have existed had the natural or absolute religion — 
the religion taught by the lips, and illustrated by the life of 
Jesus — been the only religion of her pulpits. Now, with such, 
a public sentiment in New- York and with the diabolical crimes 
growing out of it, what the people of that city needed was not 
to be summoned by their clergymen, as they are in this 
''Christian Circular," to a fresh faith in dogmas, in the Trinity, 
and in the Atonement ; but to be reminded of the claims of 
religion, of the real religion, of the claims of the human 
brotherhood, and especially of that portion of it which is the 
most bruised and battered image of the Grreat Common Father. 
What they needed was to be made sensible that God's great 
reckoning-day for the crime of American Slavery has come at 
last : — that England is required to suffer for her share in the 
crime, she having planted and helped sustain Slavery here ; that 
our Northern States must suffer for having so persistingly and 
wickedly maintained it ; and that our Southern States, guiltiest 
member of the partnership, must become little less than one deso- 
lation. What they needed was to be brought to repent of their 
sins against the black man, to help lift him up out of the depths 
into which they had helped to sink him ; and then, in the name of 
the Father and the Son and of all humanity, to recognize the 
sublime and sacred rights of his crushed manhood. This is the 
way for the people of New-York to honor Jesus, who lived 
and died for the black man equally as for the white man. In 
their substituting for this duty fresh declarations of the Divin- 
ity and Atonement of Christ, they can but make themselves 
guilty of mere prating, if not indeed of stupendous hypocrisy. 
With well-nigh all their sins against the black man still upon 
them, and with little or no relaxation in their hatred, contempt, 
and persecution of him, the present is no time for the people of 
New- York to be crying in the words of this " Christian Circu- 
lar," "Jesus Christ the Mediator: very God " — no time for 
them to be crying, " Lord, Lord ; " but the time to do the will 
of that Lord's " Father which is in heaven." 

Good men, even as good men as these who have signed this 



200 ' THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 

" Christian Circular," are, in consequence of their strong desire 
to uphold their dogmatic theology and their orthodox party, in 
danger of at least seeming to be disingenuous. What an amaz- 
ing fact it is that this "Christian Circular," in speaking of "our 
national troubles" and "our sins," makes not even the slightest 
reference to Slavery ! Indeed, since Slavery is not in its enu- 
meration of " our sins," it virtually denies that Slavery is a 
sin. For Americans to appoint a day of " fasting, humiliation, 
and prayer," and to leave out Slavery from the list of the sins 
that prompted the appointment, is most emphatically a case to 
be likened to the playing of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left 
out. ' But doubtless the great majority of the Church-members 
of ISTew-York are Pro-Slavery. How, then, could the "Christ- 
ian Circular " have succeeded in rallying them to a united faith, 
and a united service, had it included Slavery in its enumeration 
of " our sins " ? I admit that unity as well as truth is a good. 
But how lamentable that foi; the sake of gaining unity, truth 
should so often be sacrificed ? 

Shall these theologies that have crazed and cursed all the 
generations of men ever come to an end? Never, but on the 
fulfilling of either one of two conditions. In the first place, 
they- will come to an end when they shall cease to be confounded 
with religion, and cease to be regarded as religion. Christ sums 
Tip the one true religion in doing as you would be done by. He 
makes it so simple that even " babes" can understand it. Paul 
says it requires nothing but, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself:" Micah, nothing "but to do justly and to love mercy 
and to walk humbly with thy Grod ; " and Jeremiah says of a 
good man : " He judged the cause of the poor and needy ; then 
it was well with him : was not this to know me ? saith the 
Lord." When such definitions of religion shall have come to 
■obtain everywhere, there will then be no more room in the 
world for the theologies or the theological seminaries. Then 
the young man who buys a spade to tax his muscles with will 
be held to be wiser and more truly and usefully learned than 
the young man who buys a theological book to tax his brains 
with. In the second place, these theologies will come to an end 
whenever the law of evidence shall be applied to their founda- 
tions. Test them as you test other mere assumptions, and at 
once they 

"Are melted iuto air, into ildn air." 



THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 201 

Where, for instance, is tliere proof — such, proof as the 
law of evidence can respect — that the wonders on which the 
Christian theologies are based were miracles, that is, suspensions 
of natural laws, or if not such, that they seemed to be such — to 
be natural impossibilities ? But, more than this, where is there 
evidence amounting to proof, or to any thing like proof, that the 
wonders occurred ? Not only is their miraculous or seemingly 
miraculous character unproved ; but even so much as that they 
took place is unproved. For instance, there is neither proof 
that Jesus reanimated a dead body, nor that he did any thing 
out of which the tradition grew. It should always be borne in 
mind that evidence of a very extraordinary thing must, to 
amount to proof, be of a very high character for certainty. 
The court records without hesitation the testimony of the 
witness that he saw a man die. But if he adds that he saw 
the dead body go up into the clouds of heaven, he will have 
to bring more than all his neighbors to confirm the additional 
testimony. 

It is true that we receive on very slender evidence, so far in- 
deed as we do receive them, the wonders recorded in Grecian 
and Eoman histories. This we can afford. But in regard to 
the evidence of those Jewish wonders, which we are so foolish 
as to let enter into the very foundations of our religion, we can 
not afford to be careless and easy. 

Very sad is it, that in all probability many ages will elapse 
before the theologies will pass away. For, in the first place, 
not only is there a deep and an honest conviction in the priest- 
hood that the theologies are Religion, but there is a mighty in- 
terest there to keep up the theologies. When these shall fall 
the occupation of the priesthood will be gone. Preachers, I 
admit, will still be needed. But men who are not versed in 
the theologies can then be preachers. In the second place, the 
struggle between science and superstition, though sure to end 
in the success of science, can not fail to be verj^ protracted. 
The people must be trained to the certainties of science, and 
to the consequent rejection of every faith which does not rest 
upon a basis of adequate evidence, ere they will have courage 
to sit in judgment upon the theological superstitions. It does 
not suffice that there is here and there a scientific man who sees 
how baseless are the theological fabrics. For he will not say 



202 THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 

wbat lie sees, at tlie expense of making himself singular and 
odious. But when science shall be so diffused that her out- 
spoken lecturers can everywhere find large and, what is more, 
paying audiences, then these theological superstitions will be 
upon their last legs ; then the gullet of the popular credulity 
will fast contract, and such whopping stories as the Flood, and 
the dry path through the Eed Sea, and Methuselah's living 
nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and the standing still of the 
sun and moon, and Jonah and the whale, and the dead coming 
to life, will no longer be swallowed. 

That men should so almost universally believe in the theolo- 
gies is not at all strange. They are compelled to believe in 
them. For, from early childhood they are taught that they 
must believe in them or perish. So is it both in Heathendom 
and Christendom. I do not forget that our Christian teachers 
invite us to examine for ourselves the theology which they 
commend to us, and to decide for ourselves whether it is or is 
not true. But with their views of the necessity and helpless- 
ness under which we lie in this case, ought they not to look 
upon this invitation as a trifling with us ? — nay, as a somewhat 
malignant mockery of our bondage and impotence ? I admit 
that there is a show of fairness in their telling us to reason the 
matter for ourselves. But even this disappears in the light of 
the -fact that they make everlasting burnings the penalty of our 
failure to reach their conclusions. It is right to insist that 
drunkards, thieves, and murderers shall look upon their crimes 
as we do ; — in a word, that all unjust men shall see justice. Na- 
ture bids this.' But she does not bid them believe in the theo- 
logies and in their magic processes of salvation. This is vir- 
tually admitted by all who hold that the light of nature is in- 
suflicient by which to discern the truth of their theology, and 
that the lack must be supplied, by special interposition or reve- 
lation. 

The priesthoods have alwaj^s made unhesitating and unqual- 
ified faith in the theologies a high merit. They are counted 
the worthiest disciples who believe quickest and believe most. 
" Only believe — only believe !" the priests exclaim. But they 
seem to forget that God requires us to be as obedient to the law 
of evidence as to any other law. It may be wrong for a man 
to reject a particular dogma of the Christian Theology. But it 



THE CHRISTIAN CIRCULAR. 203 

certainly is wrong for him to accept it before be has gone to the 
pains of proving it. 

How easy it is to believe what is on our side and to reject 
what is on the other ! Believers in the theologies promptly 
and indignantly reject the facts on which spiritualists base their 
system of faith. Nevertheless, amongst the witnesses to these 
facts are multitudes whom they personally know to be intel- 
ligent and truthful. On the other hand, though not knowing 
who it was that saw the more wondrous facts in their theologies, 
nor indeed that any one saw them, they yet believe them, and 
have little patience with those who disbelieve them. Perhaps, 
notwithstanding the immense amount of testimony in their 
favor, these facts in Spiritualism ought not to be believed. 
Certain, however, is it that they who, on grounds far too un- 
certain to deserve the name of testimony, believe far greater 
marvels, should not laugh at the credulity of . the spiritual- 
ists. 

Believers in the theologies are guilty of believing not only 
without but against proof; not only without the approval of 
reason and nature, but in the face of both. Their belief, which 
passes for wisdom and merit, is but folly and sin. Their be- 
lief, instead of saving them, hinders far more than it helps the 
salvation which comes alone of the simple religion of love and 
righteousness. This simple religion is cherished by multitudes 
who still cling to the theologies, as well as by multitudes who 
have Hung away those fanciful, whimsical, and absurd produc- 
tions of ignorance and superstition. Thanks to the Great and 
Good Father, that his simple religion can live in connection 
with both credulity and skepticism, and can glow in the bosoms 
bath of those who believe too much and of those who believe 
too little. Let this fact, so abundantly witnessed, serve to 
bring these parties into the exercise of charity toward each 
other. With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 



6 91 1 






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